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Recollections of the Civil War

<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> <h3>WITH THE ARMY OF THE CUMBERLAND.</h3> <div class='intro'> Appointment as Assistant Secretary of War—Again to the far front—An interesting meeting with Andrew Johnson—Rosecrans's complaints—His view of the situation at Chattanooga—At General Thomas's headquarters—The first day of Chickamauga—The battlefield telegraph service—A night council of war at Widow Glenn's—Personal experiences of the disastrous second day's battle—The "Rock of Chickamauga." </div> I happened to be the first man to reach the capital from Vicksburg, and everybody wanted to hear the story and to ask questions. I was anxious to get home and see my family, however, and left for New York as soon as I could get away. A few days after I arrived in New York I received an invitation to go into business there with Mr. Ketchum, a banker, and with George Opdyke, the merchant. I wrote Mr. Stanton of the opening, but he urged me to remain in the War Department as one of his assistants, which I consented to do.[C] The first commission with which Mr. Stanton charged me after my appointment as his assistant was one similar to that which I had just finished—to go to[Pg 104] Tennessee to observe and report the movements of Rosecrans against Bragg. General Rosecrans, who, after the battle of Stone's River, or Murfreesboro, on December 31st to January 2, 1863, had lain for nearly six months at Murfreesboro, obstructing on various excuses all the efforts Lincoln and Stanton and Halleck put forth to make him move against Bragg, who occupied what was known as the Tullahoma line, had toward the end of June moved on Bragg and driven him across the Tennessee River. He had then settled down to rest again, while Bragg had taken possession of his new line in and about Chattanooga. Burnside, who was in Kentucky, had been ordered to unite with Rosecrans by way of East Tennessee, in order that the combined force should attack Bragg, but, despite the urgency of the administration, no movement was made by Rosecrans until the middle of August. As soon as it was evident that he was really going out against the Confederates, Mr. Stanton asked me to join the Army of the Cumberland. My orders were to report directly to Rosecrans's headquarters. I carried the following letter of introduction to that general: <div class='letter'> War Department, Washington City, August 30, 1863. Maj.-Gen. Rosecrans, Commanding, etc. General: This will introduce to you Charles A. Dana, Esq., one of my assistants, who visits your command for the purpose of conferring with you upon any subject which you may desire to have brought to the notice of the department. Mr. Dana is a gentleman of distinguished character, patriotism, and ability, and possesses the entire confidence of the department. You [Pg 105]will please afford to him the courtesy and consideration which he merits, and explain to him fully any matters which you may desire through him to bring to the notice of the department. Yours truly,      Edwin M. Stanton. </div> As soon as my papers arrived I left for my post. I was much delayed on railroads and steamboats, and when I reached Cincinnati found it was impossible to join Burnside by his line of march to Knoxville and from him go to Rosecrans, as I had intended. Accordingly I went on to Louisville, where I arrived on September 5th. I found there that Burnside had just occupied Knoxville; that the Ninth Corps, which two months before I had left near Vicksburg, was now about to go to him from near Louisville; and that Rosecrans had queerly enough telegraphed to the clergy all over the country that he expected a great battle that day and desired their prayers. I went directly from Louisville to Nashville, where I found General Gordon Granger in command. As he and Governor Johnson were going to the front in a day or two, I waited to go with them. The morning after my arrival at Nashville I went to call on Johnson. I had never met him before. Andrew Johnson was short and stocky, of dark complexion, smooth face, dark hair, dark eyes, and of great determination of appearance. When I went to see him in his office, the first thing he said was: "Will you have a drink?" "Yes, I will," I answered. So he brought out a jug of whisky and poured out as much as he wanted in[Pg 106] a tumbler, and then made it about half and half water. The theoretical, philosophical drinker pours out a little whisky and puts in almost no water at all—drinks it pretty nearly pure—but when a man gets to taking a good deal of water in his whisky, it shows he is in the habit of drinking a good deal. I noticed that the Governor took more whisky than most gentlemen would have done, and I concluded that he took it pretty often. I had a prolonged conversation that morning with Governor Johnson, who expressed himself in cheering terms in regard to the general condition of Tennessee. He regarded the occupation of Knoxville by Burnside as completing the permanent expulsion of Confederate power, and said he should order a general election for the first week in October. He declared that slavery was destroyed in fact, but must be abolished legally. Johnson was thoroughly in favor of immediate emancipation both as a matter of moral right and as an indispensable condition of the large immigration of industrious freemen which he thought necessary to repeople and regenerate the State. On the 10th of September we started for the front, going by rail to Bridgeport, on the Tennessee River. This town at that date was the terminus of the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad. The bridge across the river and part of the railroad beyond had been destroyed by Bragg when he retreated in the preceding summer from Tullahoma. It was by way of Bridgeport that troops were joining Rosecrans at the far front, and all supplies went to him that way. On reaching the town,[Pg 107] we heard that Chattanooga had been occupied by Crittenden's corps of Rosecrans's army the day before, September 9th; so the next day, September 11th, I pushed on there by horseback past Shellmound and Wauhatchie. The country through which I passed is a magnificent region of rocks and valleys, and I don't believe there is anywhere a finer view than that I had from Lookout Mountain as I approached Chattanooga. When I reached Chattanooga I went at once to General Rosecrans's headquarters and presented my letter. He read it, and then burst out in angry abuse of the Government at Washington. He had not been sustained, he said. His requests had been ignored, his plans thwarted. Both Stanton and Halleck had done all they could, he declared, to prevent his success. "General Rosecrans," I said, "I have no authority to listen to complaints against the Government. I was sent here for the purpose of finding out what the Government could do to aid you, and have no right to confer with you on other matters." He quieted down at once, and explained his situation to me. He had reached Chattanooga, he said, on the 10th, with Crittenden's troops, the Twenty-first Corps, the town having been evacuated the day before by the Confederates. As all the reports brought in seemed to indicate that Bragg was in full retreat toward Rome, Ga., Crittenden had immediately started in pursuit, and had gone as far as Ringgold. On the night before (September 11th) it had seemed evident that Bragg had abandoned his retreat on Rome, and behind the curtain of the woods and hills had returned with the[Pg 108] purpose of suddenly falling with his whole army upon the different corps and divisions of our army, now widely separated by the necessity of crossing the mountains at gaps far apart. This was a serious matter for Rosecrans, if true, for at that moment his army was scattered over a line more than fifty miles long, extending from Chattanooga on the north to Alpine on the south. Rosecrans pointed out to me the positions on the map. Crittenden, he explained, had been ordered immediately to leave Ringgold and move westward to the valley of the West Chickamauga. He was near a place known as Lee and Gordon's Mills. General Thomas, who commanded the Fourteenth Corps, had marched across Lookout Mountain and now held Stevens's Gap, perhaps twenty-five miles south of Chattanooga. McCook, with the Twentieth Corps, had been ordered, after crossing the Tennessee, to march southeast, and now was at Alpine, fully thirty-five miles south of Crittenden. Orders had been sent McCook, when it was found that Bragg had made a stand, to rest his left flank on the southern base of Mission Ridge, and, extending his line toward Summerville, fall on the flank of the enemy should he follow the valley that way. The reserve, under Gordon Granger, was still north of the Tennessee, although one division had reached Bridgeport and the rest were rapidly approaching. Notwithstanding the signs that Bragg might not be retreating so fast as he at first appeared to have been, Rosecrans was confident as late as the 12th that the Confederate commander was merely making a show of the offensive to check pursuit, and[Pg 109] that he would make his escape to Rome as soon as he found our army concentrated for battle east of Lookout Mountain. The next day (the 13th) I left Chattanooga with Rosecrans and his staff for Thomas's headquarters at Stevens's Gap. We found everything progressing favorably there. The movements for the concentration of the three corps were going forward with energy. Scouts were coming in constantly, who reported that the enemy had withdrawn from the basin where our army was assembling; that he was evacuating Lafayette and moving toward Rome. It seemed as if at last the Army of the Cumberland had practically gained a position from which it could effectually advance upon Rome and Atlanta, and deliver there the finishing blow of the war. The difficulties of gaining this position, of crossing the Cumberland Mountains, passing the Tennessee, turning and occupying Chattanooga, traversing the mountain ridges of northern Georgia, and seizing the passes which led southward had been enormous. It was only when I came personally to examine the region that I appreciated what had been done. These difficulties were all substantially overcome. The army was in the best possible condition, and was advancing with all the rapidity which the nature of the country allowed. Our left flank toward East Tennessee was secured by Burnside, and the only disadvantage which I could see was that a sudden movement of the enemy to our right might endanger our long and precarious line of communications and compel us to retreat again beyond the Tennessee. I felt this so keenly that I urged Mr. Stan[Pg 110]ton, in a dispatch sent to him on the 14th from Thomas's headquarters, to push as strong a column as possible eastward from Corinth, in northeastern Mississippi. It seemed to me that it would be better to recall the troops from the West rather than to risk a check here, where the heart of rebellion was within reach and the final blow all prepared. But, after all, there was something of a mystery about the real location of Bragg's army, its strength, and the designs of its chief. At any rate it was soon manifest that Bragg was not withdrawing to the southward, as at first supposed. Some queer developments down the Chickamauga on the 16th and 17th caused Rosecrans considerable anxiety for Chattanooga. The impression began to grow, too, that Bragg had been playing 'possum, and had not retreated at all. Rosecrans at once abandoned all idea of operations against the Confederate line of retreat and supply, drew his army in rapidly, and began to look sharply after his own communications with Chattanooga, which had now become his base. By noon of September 18th the concentration was practically complete. Our army then lay up and down the valley, with West Chickamauga Creek in front of the greater part of the line. The left was held by Crittenden, the center by Thomas, and the right by McCook, whose troops were now all in the valley except one brigade. The army had not concentrated any too soon, for that very afternoon the enemy appeared on our left, and a considerable engagement occurred. It was said at headquarters that a battle was certain the[Pg 111] next day. The only point Rosecrans had not determined at five o'clock on the afternoon of the 18th was whether to make a night march and fall on Bragg at daylight or to await his onset. But that night it became pretty clear to all that Bragg's plan was to push by our left into Chattanooga. This compelled another rapid movement by the left down the Chickamauga. By a tiresome night march Thomas moved down behind Crittenden and below Lee and Gordon's Mills, taking position on our extreme left. Crittenden followed, connecting with Thomas's right, and thus taking position in the center. McCook's corps also extended down stream to the left, but still covered the creek as high up as Crawfish Spring, while part of his troops acted as a reserve. These movements were hurriedly made, and the troops, especially those of Thomas, were very much exhausted by their efforts to get into position. Rosecrans had not been mistaken in Bragg's intention. About nine o'clock the next morning at Crawfish Spring, where the general headquarters were, we heard firing on our left, and reports at once came in that the battle had begun there, Bragg being in command of the enemy. Thomas had barely headed the Confederates off from Chattanooga. We remained at Crawfish Springs on this day until after one o'clock, waiting for the full proportions of the conflict to develop. When it became evident that the battle was being fought entirely on our left, Rosecrans removed his headquarters nearer to the scene, taking a little house near Lee and Gordon's Mills, known as the[Pg 112] Widow Glenn's. Although closer to the battle, we could see no more of it here than at Crawfish Springs, the conflict being fought altogether in a thick forest, and being invisible to outsiders. The nature of the firing and the reports from the commanders alone enabled us to follow its progress. That we were able to keep as well informed as we were was due to our excellent telegraphic communications. By this time the military telegraph had been so thoroughly developed that it was one of the most useful accessories of our army, even on a battlefield. For instance, after Rosecrans had taken Crawfish Springs as his headquarters, he had given orders, on September 17th, to connect the place with Chattanooga, thirteen miles to the northwest. The line was completed after the battle began on the 19th, and we were in communication not only with Chattanooga, but with Granger at Rossville and with Thomas at his headquarters. When Rosecrans removed to the Widow Glenn's, the telegraphers went along, and in an hour had connections made and an instrument clicking away in Mrs. Glenn's house. We thus had constant information of the way the battle was going, not only from the orderlies, but also from the wires. This excellent arrangement enabled me also to keep the Government at Washington informed of the progress of the battle. I sent eleven dispatches that day to Mr. Stanton. They were very brief, but they reported all that I, near as I was to the scene, knew of the battle of September 19th at Chickamauga. It was not till after dark that firing ceased and final[Pg 113] reports began to come in. From these we found that the enemy had been defeated in his attempt to turn and crush our left flank and secure possession of the Chattanooga roads, but that he was not wholly defeated, for he still held his ground in several places, and was preparing, it was believed, to renew the battle the next day. That evening Rosecrans decided that if Bragg did not retreat he would renew the fight at daylight, and a council of war was held at our headquarters at the Widow Glenn's, to which all the corps and division commanders were summoned. There must have been ten or twelve general officers there. Rosecrans began by asking each of the corps commanders for a report of the condition of his troops and of the position they occupied; also for his opinion of what was to be done. Each proposition was discussed by the entire council as it was made. General Thomas was so tired—he had not slept at all the night before, and he had been in battle all day—that he went to sleep every minute. Every time Rosecrans spoke to him he would straighten up and answer, but he always said the same thing, "I would strengthen the left," and then he would be asleep, sitting up in his chair. General Rosecrans, to the proposition to strengthen the left, made always the same reply, "Where are we going to take it from?" After the discussion was ended, Rosecrans gave his orders for the disposition of the troops on the following day. Thomas's corps was to remain on the left with his line somewhat drawn in, but substantially as he was at the close of the day. McCook was to close[Pg 114] on Thomas and cover the position at Widow Glenn's, and Crittenden was to have two divisions in reserve near the junction of McCook's and Thomas's lines, to be able to succor either. These orders were written for each corps commander. They were also read in the presence of all, and the plans fully explained. Finally, after everything had been said, hot coffee was brought in, and then McCook was called upon to sing the Hebrew Maiden. McCook sang the song, and then the council broke up and the generals went away. This was about midnight, and, as I was very tired, I lay down on the floor to sleep, beside Captain Horace Porter, who was at that time Rosecrans's chief of ordnance. There were cracks in the floor of the Widow Glenn's house, and the wind blew up under us. We would go to sleep, and then the wind would come up so cold through the cracks that it would wake us up, and we would turn over together to keep warm. At daybreak we at headquarters were all up and on our horses ready to go with the commanding general to inspect our lines. We rode past McCook, Crittenden, and Thomas to the extreme left, Rosecrans giving as he went the orders he thought necessary to strengthen the several positions. The general intention of these orders was to close up on the left, where it was evident the attack would begin. We then rode back to the extreme right, Rosecrans stopping at each point to see if his orders had been obeyed. In several cases they had not been obeyed, and he made them more peremptory. When we found that McCook's line had been elongated so that it was a mere thread, Rosecrans[Pg 115] was very angry, and sent for the general, rebuking him severely, although, as a matter of fact, General McCook's position had been taken under the written orders of the commander in chief, given the night before. About half past eight or nine o'clock the battle began on the left, where Thomas was. At that time Rosecrans, with whom I always remained, was on the right, directing the movements of the troops there. Just after the cannon began I remember that a ten-pound shell came crashing through our staff, but hurting nobody. I had not slept much for two nights, and, as it was warm, I dismounted about noon and, giving my horse to my orderly, lay down on the grass and went to sleep. I was awakened by the most infernal noise I ever heard. Never in any battle I had witnessed was there such a discharge of cannon and musketry. I sat up on the grass, and the first thing I saw was General Rosecrans crossing himself—he was a very devout Catholic. "Hello!" I said to myself, "if the general is crossing himself, we are in a desperate situation." I was on my horse in a moment. I had no sooner collected my thoughts and looked around toward the front, where all this din came from, than I saw our lines break and melt away like leaves before the wind. Then the headquarters around me disappeared. The gray-backs came through with a rush, and soon the musket balls and the cannon shot began to reach the place where we stood. The whole right of the army had apparently been routed. My orderly stuck to me like a veteran, and we drew back for greater safety into the woods a little way. There I came upon General Porter—Captain[Pg 116] Porter he was then—and Captain Drouillard, an aide-de-camp infantry officer attached to General Rosecrans's staff, halting fugitives. They would halt a few of them, get them into some sort of a line, and make a beginning of order among them, and then there would come a few rounds of cannon shot through the tree-tops over their heads and the men would break and run. I saw Porter and Drouillard plant themselves in front of a body of these stampeding men and command them to halt. One man charged with his bayonet, menacing Porter; but Porter held his ground, and the man gave in. That was the only case of real mutiny that I ever saw in the army, and that was under such circumstances that the man was excusable. The cause of all this disaster was the charge of the Confederates through the hiatus in the line caused by the withdrawal of Wood's division, under a misapprehension of orders, before its place could be filled. I attempted to make my way from this point in the woods to Sheridan's division, but when I reached the place where I knew it had been a little time before, I found it had been swept from the field. Not far away, however, I stumbled on a body of organized troops. This was a brigade of mounted riflemen under Colonel John T. Wilder, of Indiana. "Mr. Dana," asked Colonel Wilder, "what is the situation?" "I do not know," I said, "except that this end of the army has been routed. There is still heavy fighting at the left front, and our troops seem to be holding their ground there yet." "Will you give me any orders?" he asked. [Pg 117] "I have no authority to give orders," I replied; "but if I were in your situation I should go to the left, where Thomas is." Then I turned my horse, and, making my way over Missionary Ridge, struck the Chattanooga Valley and rode to Chattanooga, twelve or fifteen miles away. The whole road was filled with flying soldiers; here and there were pieces of artillery, caissons, and baggage wagons. Everything was in the greatest disorder. When I reached Chattanooga, a little before four o'clock, I found Rosecrans there. In the helter-skelter to the rear he had escaped by the Rossville road. He was expecting every moment that the enemy would arrive before the town, and was doing all he could to prepare to resist his entrance. Soon after I arrived the two corps commanders, McCook and Crittenden, both came into Chattanooga. The first thing I did on reaching town was to telegraph Mr. Stanton. I had not sent him any telegrams in the morning, for I had been in the field with Rosecrans, and part of the time at some distance from the Widow Glenn's, where the operators were at work. The boys kept at their post there until the Confederates swept them out of the house. When they had to run, they went instruments and tools in hand, and as soon as out of reach of the enemy set up shop on a stump. It was not long before they were driven out of this. They next attempted to establish an office on the Rossville road, but before they had succeeded in making connections a battle was raging around them, and they had to retreat to Granger's headquarters at Rossville. [Pg 118] Having been swept bodily off the battlefield, and having made my way into Chattanooga through a panic-stricken rabble, the first telegram which I sent to Mr. Stanton was naturally colored by what I had seen and experienced. I remember that I began the dispatch by saying: "My report to-day is of deplorable importance. Chickamauga is as fatal a name in our history as Bull Run." By eight o'clock that evening, however, I found that I had given too dark a view of the disaster. Early the next morning things looked still better. Rosecrans received a telegram from Thomas at Rossville, to which point he had withdrawn after the nightfall, saying that his troops were in high spirits, and that he had brought off all his wounded. A little while before noon General James A. Garfield, who was chief of Rosecrans's staff, arrived in Chattanooga and gave us the first connected account we had of the battle on the left after the rout. Garfield said that he had become separated from Rosecrans in the rout of our right wing and had made his way to the left, and spent the afternoon and night with General Thomas. There he witnessed the sequel of the battle in that part of the field. Thomas, finding himself cut off from Rosecrans and the right, at once marshalled the remaining divisions for independent fighting. Refusing both his right and left, his line assumed the form of a horseshoe, posted along the slope and crest of a partly wooded ridge. He was soon joined by Granger from Rossville, with Steedman and most of the reserve; and with these forces, more than two thirds of the army, he firmly maintained the[Pg 119] fight till after dark. Our troops were as immovable as the rocks they stood on. Longstreet hurled against them repeatedly the dense columns which had routed Davis and Sheridan in the early afternoon, but every onset was repulsed with dreadful slaughter. Falling first on one and then another point of our lines, for hours the rebels vainly sought to break them. Thomas seemed to have filled every soldier with his own unconquerable firmness, and Granger, his hat torn by bullets, raged like a lion wherever the combat was hottest with the electrical courage of a Ney. When night fell, this body of heroes stood on the same ground they had occupied in the morning, their spirit unbroken, but their numbers greatly diminished. [Pg 120] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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