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$Unique_ID{USH00206}
$Pretitle{14}
$Title{Our Country: Volume 6
Chapter CXXVII}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Lossing, Benson J., LL.D.}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{general
army
tennessee
confederates
chattanooga
national
thousand
bragg
battle
mountain}
$Volume{Vol. 6}
$Date{1905}
$Log{}
Book: Our Country: Volume 6
Author: Lossing, Benson J., LL.D.
Volume: Vol. 6
Date: 1905
Chapter CXXVII
Partisan Opposition to the Government - Knights of the Golden Circle -
The Draft - Riots in New York - Colored Troops in New York - Morgan's Great
Raid - Meade and Lee in Virginia - Operations of the Two Armies in Virginia -
Raid in Western Virginia - Rosecrans and Bragg in Tennessee - Streight's Great
Raid - Bragg Driven to and from Chattanooga - Burnside in East Tennessee -
Battle of Chickamauga - The Army at Chatanooga - Division in Mississippi -
Battle at Wauhatchie - The Mule Charge - Events in East Tennessee - Battle on
Lookout Mountain and on Missionary Ridge - Operations Against Charleston -
Robert Small - Death of General Mitchell.
WHILE the loyal people were rejoicing because of the great deliverance at
Gettysburg, and the Government was preparing for a final and decisive struggle
with its foes, leading politicians of the Peace-Faction, evidently in
affiliation with members of the disloyal organization known as Knights of the
Golden Circle, were using every means in their power to defeat the patriotic
purposes of the National Administration, and to stir up the people of the
free-labor States to engage in a counter-revolution.
The association called Knights of the Golden Circle was organized, it is
said, as early as 1835, by some of the leaders who were engaged in the
nullification movements in South Carolina two or three years before. Its
chief objects were the separation of the Union politically, at the line
between the free-labor and slave-labor States; the seizure of some of the
richest portions of Mexico and the Island of Cuba, and the establishment of an
empire whose corner-stone should be Slavery. The bounds of that empire were
within a circle, the centre of which was at Havana, in Cuba, with a radius of
sixteen degrees of latitude and longitude, reaching northward to the
Pennsylvania border and southward to the Isthmus of Darien and even beyond.
It would include the West India Islands and those of the Caribbean Sea, with a
large part of Eastern Mexico and the whole of Central America. The limits of
this empire the projectors called "The Golden Circle," and the members of the
association, "Knights of the Golden Circle," who formed the soul of all the
"fillibustering" operations before the breaking out of the Civil War, from
1850 to 1857. When these failed, their energies were put forth for the
destruction of the Union. "Castles" or "lodges," with a secret ritual, were
formed in various Southern States, and their membership included many active
politicians north of the Ohio River, in 1863.
These disloyal men in the northern States, countenanced by the
unpatriotic Peace-Faction, became very vehement in their opposition to the
Government when, in the summer of 1863, a draft or conscription to fill up the
ranks of the army which had been authorized by Congress, was put into
operation by the President. This act, the suspension of the privilege of the
writ of habeas corpus, the arrest of seditious men, and other measures which
the Government deemed necessary for the maintenance of the National authority,
were denounced by the leaders of the party opposed to Mr. Lincoln's
administration, as unconstitutional and outrageous. Instigated by raving
political leaders, inflammatory speeches, and the daily utterances of the
press that was in sympathy with the opponents of the draft, a mob, composed
largely of the lower class of the Irish population in the city of New York,
entered upon a fearful riot there early in July. It prevailed for almost
three days. The immediate pretext for the disturbance was the alleged
oppression of the draft. The riot was begun by destroying the telegraph wires
extending out of the city. Then the rioters paraded some of the streets and
forced citizens to join them and after first uttering cries against the draft,
they yelled, "Down with the Abolitionists! down with the nigger! Hurrah for
Jeff Davis! The special objects of their wrath were the innocent colored
people and their friends. Arson and plunder, maiming and murder, were their
business and recreation, Men and women were clubbed to death in the streets,
hung on lamp-posts or butchered in their houses. The infuriated rioters laid
in ashes an asylum for colored orphan children; and the terrified inmates, who
fled in every direction, were pursued, and some of the poor children were
cruelly beaten and maimed. The colored people throughout he city were hunted
and treated as if they were noxious wild beasts, and many fled to the country.
Finally the police, aided by troops, suppressed the insurrection in the city,
but not until several hundred human lives had been lost, and property to the
amount of at least $2,000,000 was destroyed.
This riot seems to have been only an irregular manifestation of an
organized outbreak in New York city simultaneously with a similar insurrection
projected in some of the western cities. But the draft went on in spite of
all opposition; and the Knights of the Golden Circle and the Peace. Faction
were discomfited. The turn of affairs at Gettysburg made them more
circumspect. They hesitated; and finally they postponed indefinitely an
attempt to execute their scheme. And six months after the terrible "three
days of July" - 13th, 14th and 15th in the city of New York, when no colored
person's life was considered safe there, a regiment of negro soldiers, raised
and equipped by the Loyal League of that city, marched down Broadway - its
great thoroughfare - for the field of battle, escorted by many of the leading
citizens of the metropolis, and cheered by thousands who covered the sidewalks
and filled windows and balconies.
At about that time, the notorious guerrilla chief, John Morgan, made a
famous raid through Kentucky, Southern Indiana and Ohio, entering Indiana from
Kentucky, below Louisville, on the 8th of July, with about four thousand
mounted men. This raid was intended as a signal for the uprising of the
disloyal men in those States in favor of the Confederates. The lesson taught
at Gettysburg was heeded, and they were quiet. But there was a marvelous
uprising of sixty thousand loyal yeomen of Indiana and Ohio to capture or
expel the invaders. Morgan went swiftly through the country, from village to
village, plundering, destroying, and levying contributions. He first
encountered stout resistance from Indiana militia, and was soon closely
pursued by those of Ohio. Finally this bold raider was hemmed in and made a
prisoner, with many of his followers, in southeastern Ohio, late in July, and
the remainder were killed or dispersed.
Three days after General Lee escaped into Virginia, General Meade crossed
the Potomac to follow his flying antagonist. The Nationals marched rapidly
along the eastern base of the Blue Ridge, while the Confederates as rapidly
went up the Shenandoah Valley, after trying to check Meade by threatening to
re-enter Maryland. Failing in this, Lee hastened to avert the danger that
menaced his front and flank. During that exciting race, several skirmishes
occurred in the mountain passes; when Lee, by a quick and skillful movement
while Meade was detained at Manassas Gap by a heavy skirmish, darted through
Chester Gap, and crossing the Rappahannock, took a position between that
stream and the Rapid Anna. Meade advanced cautiously, and at the middle of
September, he crossed the Rappahannock and drove Lee beyond the Rapid Anne',
when the latter took a strongly defensive position. Meanwhile the National
cavalry under Buford and Kilpatrick had been active between the two rivers,
and had frequent skirmishes with Stuart's mounted troops.
Lee now attempted to turn the right flank of the Army of the Potomac to
gain its rear and march rapidly on Washington. He had moved some distance for
this purpose before Meade discovered his peril. Then a third race for the
National Capital by the two armies over nearly the same course occurred. The
Army of the Potomac won it, reaching Centreville Heights on the 15th of
October. It was a race marked by the most stirring incidents, for there was
much scouting and skirmishing on the way. At Jeffersonton, the National
cavalry under General Gregg were routed; and at Auburn, the seat of John Minor
Botts, a prominent Virginia statesman, Stuart, with two thousand Confederate
cavalry, came very near being captured. From that point to Bristow's Station
the race was sharp, for Centreville Heights was the goal. At Bristow's, a
severe engagement occurred between the corps of Generals Warren and Hill. The
latter was joined by that of Ewell; but before they could fall upon Warren, he
withdrew in the night (October 14) and joined Meade at Centreville on the
morning of the 15th.
The race was ended at Bristow's Station. Lee was beaten, and fell back
to the Rappahannock, destroying the railway behind him. Meade repaired the
road, and following Lee slowly, attacked him at Rappahannock Station early in
November. A very sharp battle ensued. It was fought by detachments of the
Fifth and Sixth corps, under General Sedgwick; and it was ended by a gallant
charge on a redoubt and rifle-trenches. These were carried in the face of a
tempest of grape-shot and minie bullets, when the Nationals swept down to a
pontoon bridge, cut off the retreat of the Confederates from the abandoned
works, made over sixteen hundred of them prisoners, and drove Lee's army
toward Culpepper Court-House. There the latter had proposed to go into
winter-quarters; hut this disaster alarmed him, and he sought safety from his
pursuer behind the Rapid Anne. His force was then fifty thousand strong, and
Meade's numbered seventy thousand. With these the latter crossed the
Rappahannock and lay quietly between the two rivers until late in November,
while Lee occupied a line of strong defenses along Mine Run.
Feeling strong enough for the enterprise, Meade proceeded, on the 26th of
November, to attempt a dislodgment of his antagonist. He crossed the Rapid
Anna on that day, and pushed on in the direction of his foe, General Warren,
in the advance, opened a battle; but Meade soon perceived that the
Confederates were too strongly intrenched and weighty in numbers to give him
hopes of success, and he withdrew. The Army of the Potomac went into
winter-quarters on the north side of the Rapid Anne and so was ended the
campaign of that army for the year 1863.
There had been comparative quiet in Western Virginia since the autumn of
1861 but in the summer and fall of 1863, that quiet was broken by an extensive
raid over that region by National cavalry led by General W. W. Averill, who,
before the close of the year, nearly purged West Virginia of armed
Confederates, and seriously interrupted railway communication between the army
of Lee in Virginia and Bragg in Tennessee. We left the last-named officer and
Rosecrans confronting each other in Tennessee, after the battle of
Murfreesboro Bragg below the Duck River and Rosecrans at the scene of the
battle. The two armies held that relative position from January to June, 1863
while the cavalry forces of each were active in minor operations. Confederate
cavalry, four thousand strong, led by Generals Wharton and Forrest, attempted
to capture Fort Donelson early in February, but failed. A little later
General Van Dorn, with a considerable force of cavalry, was near Franklin,
below Nashville, threatening Rosecrans's supplies at the latter place. In
March, General Sheridan drove Van Dorn south of the Duck River; and in the
same month Morgan was operating with considerable effect eastward of
Murfreesboro. Van Dorn reappeared near Franklin, early in April, with about
nine thousand Confederates; and on the 10th he attacked the Nationals there,
who were commanded by General Gordon Granger. Van Dorn intended, if he won,
to push on and seize Nashville; but he was repulsed, and retired to Spring
Hill with a loss of about three hundred men.
In the meantime Rosecrans had sent out expeditions in various ways, the
most remarkable of which was led by Colonel A. D. Streight, who left Nashville
in steamers, debarked his troops at Fort Donelson, marched over to the
Tennessee River, and moved up that stream to the borders of Mississippi and
Alabama, getting horses by the way for the purpose of mounting his men. The
latter service was nearly completed at Tuscumbia; and from that point
Streight, with his troopers, swept in a curve bending eastward, through
Alabama into Georgia, in the rear of Bragg's army. Their chief objects were
Rome, where the Confederates had extensive iron-works, and Atlanta, the centre
of an important system of railroads. They were pursued by the cavalry of
Forrest and Roddy, and these parties skirmished and raced until Streight was
within a few miles of Rome, when his exhausted horses and his ammunition
failed him. Many of the poor beasts died; and when, on the 3rd of May (1863),
the raiders were struck by their pursuers, the former were compelled to
surrender. The captives were sent to Richmond and confined in the loathsome
Libby Prison, from which Streight and one hundred of his officers escaped by
burrowing under the foundations of that edifice.
The Army of the Cumberland, in three divisions, commanded respectively by
Generals Thomas, McCook and Crittenden, began its march from Murfreesboro to
Chattanooga, in northern Georgia, late in June. Bragg was then strongly
intrenched on the line of the Duck River, but was pushed back to Tullahoma;
and when he saw Rosecrans seize the mountain passes on his front, and
seriously menace his flank, he turned and fled without giving a blow, his
antagonist pressing hard upon his rear. Having the advantage of railway
communication, the retreating army very easily kept ahead of their pursuers,
and passing rapidly over the Cumberland Mountains toward the Tennessee River,
they crossed that stream at Bridgeport, destroying the bridge behind them, and
made a rapid march to Chattanooga.
The expulsion of Bragg's army from Tennessee alarmed and disheartened the
Confederates, and they felt that everything depended on their holding
Chattanooga, the key to East Tennessee and northern Georgia. Toward that
point the Army of the Cumberland moved slowly; and late in August it had
crossed the mountains, and was stretched along the Tennessee River from above
Chattanooga, many a league westward. On the 21st of August, National
artillery placed on the eminence opposite Chattanooga, awakened the mountain
echoes with their thunder, and sent screaming shells over the Confederate
camp. Bragg was startled by a sense of immediate danger; and when, soon
afterward, Generals Thomas and McCook crossed the Tennessee, with their corps,
and took possession of the passes of Lookout Mountain on Bragg's flank, and
Crittenden took post at Wauhatchie, in Lookout Valley, nearer the river, the
Confederates abandoned Chattanooga, passed through the gaps of Missionary
Ridge and encamped on the Chickamauga Creek near Lafayette, in northern
Georgia, there to meet expected National forces when pressing through the gaps
of Lookout Mountain and threatening their communications with Dalton and
Resaca. From the lofty summit of Lookout Mountain, Crittenden had observed
the retreat of Bragg from the Tennessee River, and he immediately led his
forces into the Chattanooga Valley and encamped at Ross's Gap in Missionary
Ridge, within three miles of the town.
General Burnside was then in command of the Army of the Ohio, and had
been ordered to co-operate with Rosecrans. With twenty thousand men he
climbed over the Cumberland Mountains into the magnificent Valley of East
Tennessee, his baggage and stores carried, in many places, on the backs of
pack-mules. On his entering the Valley, twenty thousand Confederates in East
Tennessee, commanded by General Buckner, fled to Georgia and joined Bragg,
when Burnside took a position near the Tennessee River, so as to have easy
communication with Rosecrans at Chattanooga. The latter, meanwhile,
erroneously supposing Bragg had begun a retreat toward Rome, had pushed
through the mountain passes, when he was surprised to find that general,
instead of retreating, concentrating his forces to attack the attenuated line
of the Nationals, the extremities of which were fifty miles apart. Rosecrans
proceeded at once to concentrate his own forces and very soon the two armies
were confronting each other in battle array, on each side of Chickamauga
Creek, in the vicinity of Crawfish Spring, each line extending toward the
slopes of Missionary Ridge. General Thomas, who was on the extreme left of
the National line, opened the battle on the morning of the 19th of September.
It raged with great fierceness until dark, when the Nationals seemed to have
the advantage. That night General Longstreet, whom Lee had sent from Virginia
to assist Bragg, arrived with fresh troops which swelled the Confederate army
to seventy thousand men, and gave to it a far better soldier than the chief
leader. Rosecrans's army did not then exceed, in number, fifty-five thousand
men.
On the morning of the 20th the contest was renewed after a thick fog had
risen from the earth. There was a fearful struggle. A furious charge upon
the National right had shattered it into fragments, and these fled in disorder
toward Chattanooga. This tide carried with it the troops led by Rosecrans,
Crittenden and McCook; and the commanding-general, unable to join Thomas, and
believing the whole army would speedily be hurrying pell-mell toward
Chattanooga, hastened to that place to provide for rallying them there.
Generals Sheridan and J. C. Davis rallied a part of these troops, and Thomas
stood firm, frustrating every effort to turn his flank. Forty-eight hours
after the battle the army, which had been withdrawn to Chattanooga, was
strongly intrenched there.
Victory crowned the Confederates in the battle of Chickamauga, but at the
fearful cost of about twenty-one thousand men killed, wounded, and made
prisoners. The Nationals lost about nineteen thousand men. During the
contest a little volunteer soldier named John Clem, then about twelve years of
age, performed a deed of daring. He had been in the thickest of the fight
when, separated from his companions, he was seen running with a musket in his
hand by a mounted Confederate colonel, who called out, "Stop! you little
Yankee devil!" The boy halted, with his musket to an order, when the colonel
rode up to make him a prisoner. Young Clem, with swift motion, brought up his
gun and shot the colonel dead. The boy escaped; and for this achievement he
was made a sergeant, put on duty at the headquarters of the Army of the
Cumberland, and placed on the roll of honor by General Rosecrans. He grew to
manhood, married, and held a position in one of the departments of Government
in Washington.
For a time the vanquished army suffered much at Chattanooga, for
communication with their supplies by the Tennessee was cut off, the
Confederates occupying Lookout Mountain and commanding that stream. Bragg
hoped to starve his foes into submission. He strove to deprive them of all
supplies, and severe struggles between detachments of the two armies were the
consequences. Bragg failed. The National Government had determined to hold
Chattanooga, and orders were given for the consolidation of the armies of the
Cumberland and Tennessee, constituting the military division of the
Mississippi, with General Grant as commander-in-chief. He had secured the
free navigation of the Mississippi River, after the fall of Vicksburg and Port
Hudson, by driving the Confederates, under Johnston, from the vicinity and
strongly fortifying the first-named place; and when he took command of the new
division, General Sherman was made the leader of the Army of the Tennessee,
and General Thomas was placed in command of the Army of the Cumberland,
Rosecrans having been ordered to St. Louis.
When Grant arrived at Chattanooga, he ordered Hooker, who was at
Bridgeport, to advance to Lookout Valley, menace Bragg's flank, and protect
the passage of supplies up the Tennessee to within a short distance from the
famishing armies. This was promptly done. Hooker's main force took post at
Wauhatchie, where he was attacked before daylight on the morning of the 29th
of October. After a battle for three hours in the darkness, the Confederates
were beaten and driven away. An amusing incident of this struggle occurred.
When it began, about two hundred mules, frightened by the noise, broke from
their tethers and dashed into the ranks of Wade Hampton's legion, and produced
a great panic. The Confederates supposed it to be a charge of Hooker's
cavalry, and fell back, at first, in great confusion. The incident was a
theme for a mock-heroic poem of six stanzas in imitation of Tennyson's "Charge
of the Light Brigade," two verses of which were as follows:
"Forward, the mule brigade - Was there a mule dismay'd? Not when their long
ears felt All their ropes sundered. Theirs not to make reply - Theirs not to
reason why - Theirs but to make them fly - On to the Georgia troops Broke the
two hundred. Mules to the right of them - Mules to the left of them - Mules
all behind them - Paw'd, neigh'd, and thundered; Breaking their own confines -
Breaking through Longstreet's lines - Testing chivalric spines, Into the
Georgia troops Storm'd the two hundred."
After this battle, the Tennessee was free for vessels with supplies for
the National troops, and the two armies lay confronting each other, only about
three miles apart.
Meanwhile there had been stirring events in the Valley of East Tennessee,
where Burnside was trying to expel the Confederates. In these efforts he had
spread his army considerably. Perceiving this, Bragg sent Longstreet to the
Valley with a strong force to seize Knoxville and drive out the Nationals. He
advanced swiftly and secretly and on the 20th of October he struck a startling
blow at Burnside's outposts at Philadelphia. In obedience to a command from
Grant, the latter concentrated his forces (Ninth Army Corps), fell back to
Knoxville, and there intrenched. Longstreet pressed forward, and after some
fighting by the way, he began a regular siege of Knoxville at the middle of
November. He continued it to the close of the month, when Generals Granger
and Sherman were sent to the relief of Burnside, and caused the swift flight
of Longstreet toward Virginia. By this blunder, Bragg had lost the support of
this superior commander.
Hostilities had again occurred near Chattanooga. General Sherman arrived
there, with his army, from the West. So strengthened, Grant determined to
attack Bragg in the absence of Longstreet. On the 23rd of November, General
Thomas seized a commanding eminence in front of Missionary Ridge, called
Orchard Knob, and fortified it; and Hooker was ordered to attack Bragg's left,
on Lookout Mountain, the next morning, to divert attention from the movements
of Sherman, who was to cross the Tennessee, above Chattanooga, and fall upon
Bragg's right, on the Ridge. Hooker moved with vigor, fighting his way up the
rugged wooded steeps of Lookout Mountain with musket, rifle and cannon,
driving the Confederates before him. During the heaviest of the struggle the
mountain was hooded in vapor that arose from the Tennessee and hid the
combatants from the view of the anxious spectators at Chattanooga. They could
hear the thunders of the artillery, but the warriors were invisible. It was
literally a battle in the clouds. Finally the Confederates were driven to the
summit: and that night they fled down the northern slopes to the Chattanooga
Valley, and joined their commander on Missionary Ridge. In the crisp air and
the sunlight, the next morning, the Stars and Stripes were seen waving over
"Pulpit Rock," on the crest of Lookout Mountain, from which, a few days
before, Jefferson Davis had harangued the troops, assuring them that all was
well with the Confederacy.
Sherman, in the meantime, had crossed the Tennessee River and secured a
position on the northern end of Missionary Ridge, on which Bragg had
concentrated all his forces, and there the Confederates were attacked on front
and flank on the 25th of November. Hooker came down from Lookout Mountain,
and entering Ross's Gap, attacked Bragg's left, while Sherman was assailing
his right. There was a fearful struggle, beheld with intense interest by
General Grant, who stood on Orchard Knob and directed the movements of the
National army. At length the centre, under General Thomas, moved up the
declivities; and very soon the Confederates were driven from the Ridge, when
they fled toward Ringgold, followed by a portion of the National army. At
Ringgold, a sharp engagement occurred, when the Confederates retreated to
Dalton, the Nationals fell back, and Sherman hastened to the relief of
Burnside, as already mentioned.
General Grant reported the Union loss, in the series of struggles which
ended in victory at Missionary Ridge, at five thousand six hundred and
sixteen, in killed, wounded, and missing. The Confederate loss was about
three thousand one hundred, killed and wounded, and a little more than six
thousand prisoners. Grant had also captured forty pieces of artillery and
about seven thousand small arms. In a letter to the victorious general, the
President thanked him and his men for their skill and bravery in securing "a
lodgment at Chattanooga and Knoxville." Congress voted thanks and a gold medal
for Grant, and directed the President of the Republic to cause the latter to
be struck, "with suitable emblems, devices, and inscriptions." The general was
the recipient of other tokens of regard, of various kinds; and the
legislatures of New York and Ohio voted him thanks in the name of the people
of those great States.
During the first half of 1863, General J. G. Foster was in command of the
National troops in North Carolina, with his headquarters at New Berne, from
which point he sent out raiding parties to scatter Confederate forces who were
gathering here and there to recover lost posts in that State. In these
expeditions, many sharp skirmishes took place. The Nationals were generally
successful, and confined their antagonists to the interior of the State.
Finally, in July (I 863), Foster was called to the command at Fortress Monroe,
and left his troops in charge of General Palmer. Meanwhile there had been
important occurrences in the vicinity of Charleston, South Carolina, the
capture of that city being one objective of the National Government. Attempts
had been made the previous year by General David Hunter (commanding the
Department of the South) and Admiral Dupont, to seize that city, but failed.
Dupont had received important information concerning military affairs at
Charleston, from Robert Small, a slave, who was a pilot in the Confederate
service. One night, at the middle of May (1862), assisted by some
fellow-bondsmen, Small took the Confederate steamer Planter out of Charleston
harbor, delivered her to Dupont, gave him valuable information, and entered
the service of the Republic. Soon afterward the National land troops took a
position on James Island, near Charleston; and at Secessionville, General
Benham, with a small force, fought the Confederates at the middle of June, and
was defeated. Further attempts to capture Charleston were then suspended.
Hunter was succeeded in the command of the department by General O. M.
Mitchel, who, as we have observed, was called to Washington from Tennessee,
where he chafed under Buell's command. He reached Hilton Head on the 16th of
September, and with his usual vigor he devised plans and prepared to execute
them for the public good. Hilton Head island was swarming with refugee
slaves, and he at once took measures for their relief, laying out a village,
causing neat and comfortable log-houses to be built for their residences, and
finding employment for them. He was preparing to use his military force with
vigor in his department; but before his arrangements were completed, he was
smitten by a disease similar to the yellow fever, when he was conveyed to the
more healthy locality of Beaufort, where he died on the 30th of October. From
that time, until the spring of 1864, very little of importance occurred in the
Department of the South, of which Hunter again became the commander.