網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

COLONEL McCOOK'S REPORT.

207

Infantry, were both severely wounded in fell into the hands of the victorious army. the first advance of the 9th Ohio regi- A circular or order of march of General ment, but continued on duty until the re- Crittenden, dated from his headquarters, turn of the brigade to camp at Logan's Birch Grove, Kentucky, January 18th, Cross Roads. Colonel S. S. Fry, 4th shows the force which left the rebel inKentucky regiment, was slightly wound- trenchments that night. To General Zoled whilst his regiment was gallantly re- licoffer were assigned the 15th, 19th, sisting the advance of the enemy, during 20th, and 25th Mississippi regiments, which time General Zollicoffer fell from with Captain Rutledge's battery of four. a shot from his (Colonel Fry's) pistol, guns, and to General Carroll the 17th, which, no doubt, contributed materially 28th, and 29th Tennessee regiaents, with to the discomfiture of the enemy. **two guns, the 16th Alabama in reserve, A number of flags were taken on the with battalions of cavalry in the rear. field of battle, and in the intrenchments. The movement was apparently made The enemy's loss, as far as known, is as with the expectation of cutting off a follows: Brigadier-General Zollicoffer, portion of the Union troops before the Lieutenant Bailey Peyton, and 190 offi- rest arrived or the junction of the two cers and non-commissioned officers and commands of Thomas and Schoepf was privates, killed. Lieutenant-Colonel W. effected. "False intelligence of the eneB. Carter, 20th Tennessee, Lieutenant J. my's force," said the Knoxville (TennesW. Allen, 15th Mississippi, Lieutenant see) Register, accounting for the defeat, Allan Morse, 16th Alabama, and five" was brought by one Johnson, known officers of the Medical Staff, and 81 noncommissioned officers and privates taken prisoners. Lieutenant J. E. Patterson, 20th Tennessee, and A. J. Knapp, 15th Mississippi, and 66 non-commissioned oflicers and privates, wounded. Making 192 killed, 89 prisoners not wounded and 62 wounded. A total of killed, wounded, and prisoners of 349. Our loss is: One commissioned officer and thirty-eight men, killed, and fourteen officers, including Lieutenant Bart, United States Infantry, A. D. C., and 194 men, commissioned officers and privates, wounded."

The 10th Indiana lost ten men, killed; three commissioned officers and seventytwo non-commissioned officers and privates, wounded. The 9th Ohio lost six men, killed; four commissioned officers and twenty-four non-commissioned officers and privates, wounded. The casualties of the 2d Minnesota were twelve non-commissioned officers and privates, killed; two officers and thirty-one privates, wounded. Twenty-one pieces of artillery, some fifteen hundred horses and mules, the entire camp equipage of the enemy, and other stores to a large amount,

familiarly as hogback Johnson.' General Crittenden ordered an advance, supposing the enemy to be only fifteen hundred strong."

The Report of Acting Brigadier-General McCook, and the several regimental reports, supply many interesting details of the valor exhibited on this well-fought field. The Minnesota regiment, in their hand-to-hand encounter with the Mississippians, were at one time in such close encounter that "they were poking their guns through the same fence at each other." The charge of the 9th Ohio gained that regiment, already well tried in the school of war in Virginia, great credit for gallantry. "Seeing the superior numbers of the enemy and their bravery," says Colonel McCook in narrating the incident, "I concluded the best mode of settling the contest was to order the 9th Ohio to charge the enemy's position with the bayonet and turn his left flank. The order was given the regiment to empty their guns and fix bayonets. This done, it was ordered to charge. Every man sprang to it with alacrity and vociferous cheering. The enemy

seemingly prepared to resist it, but be-knowing neither his person nor his rank.* fore the regiment reached him the lines The rebel General wore a white rubber commenced to give way-but few of coat over his uniform, and, it is said, had them stood, perhaps ten or twelve. This his beard shaved off the evening prebroke the enemy's flank, and the whole vious to the battle, to be less readily line gave way in great confusion, and distinguished. the whole turned into a perfect rout." The Report of Lieutenant-Colonel W. C. Kise, commanding the 10th Indiana, was equally honorable to that regiment, which was the first to meet the enemy in the morning, and, "powder-besmeared, tired and hungry, having had nothing to eat since the previous night," the foremost in pursuit of his shattered forces at eve. They, too, executed a bayonet charge with great spirit, "driving the enemy from the woods into an open field two hundred yards." Colonel McCook was severely wounded in the leg below the knee, but remained in the field, pursuing the enemy at the head of his brigade a distance of twelve miles, of which he was compelled to make three miles on foot in an ankle-deep morass. His horse received three wounds from shots. One ball passed through the collar of his overcoat and the fifth struck him in the leg.*

Lieutenant Bailey Peyton was the son of an ex-member of Congress of Tennessee. He had been educated abroad at Heidelburg, and was engaged in the profession of the law in his native State. He was about twenty-seven years old at the time he fell, and, it is said, "was a staunch Union man until public opinion placed him into the army. He expressed regret as to the nature of the war between the sections only the day before he was killed. He was shot twenty steps in advance of his company by a Minié ball." The bodies of both officers were taken charge of and carried by a flag of truce from Munfordsville to the enemy's line, a funeral salute being fired from the Union camp as the escort passed over the pontoon bridge at Green river.†

General Thomas, the commander of the Union forces in this battle, was a native of Virginia, a graduate of West In respect to the death of General Point of 1840, when he was appointed to Zollicoffer, it was at first related that the 3d Artillery. He had since been Colonel Fry recognized him as he came actively engaged in his professional duup, and shot him on the instant with his ties in the army; in the Florida war; in revolver; but this was not so, as ap- Mexico, at Monterey, and at Buena Vispears by his own subsequent statement, ta; in all which services he was brevetas it was reported in the Louisville Jour- ted for his gallantry. He was afterward nal. Colonel Fry, it seems, was in the instructor of artillery and cavalry at act of leading his regiment, the 4th Ken- West Point, and at the breaking out of tucky, in a charge upon the Mississip- the Rebellion held the rank of Major of pians, when General Zollicoffer, evident- the 2d Cavalry. In the rapid promotion ly mistaking him for an officer on his which followed he rose first to a Colown side, rode up to him with an aid onelcy, then to the rank of Brigadierand said, "You are not going to fight General, serving, previously to his apyour friends, are you? These," point-pointment to Kentucky, with General ing to the Mississippians, "are all your Patterson's division on the Shenandoah. friends." The aid then fired, wounding the horse of Colonel Fry, when the latter turned and fired, killing Zollicoffer,

Letter from Colonel R. L. McCook to Gustavus Tafel, Camp Hamilton, Kentucky, January 21, 1862.

The news of the battle of Mill Spring

* Report of a letter from Colonel S. S. Fry to his wife, narrating the manner in which he killed General Zollicoffer, published in the Louisville Journal.

+ Munfordsville Correspondence of the New York Tribune, January 30, 1862.

AN ORDER FROM THE WAR DEPARTMENT.

209

was received with enthusiasm through- Order from the War Department: "The out the North for the evidence that it President, Commander-in-Chief of the afforded of the courage and perseverance Army and Navy, has received informaof the Union troops in an open encoun- tion of the brilliant victory achieved by ter. The enemy had come forth from the United States forces over a large his entrenchments, and though with su- body of armed traitors and rebels at perior numbers and the expectation of Mill Spring in the State of Kentucky. engaging the advance of General Thom- He returns thanks to the gallant officers as's force at an advantage, yet the contest and soldiers who won that victory, and had been an open one. The dreaded when the official reports shall be reMississippians had been met hand-to-ceived, the military skill and personal hand, and the victory was with the men of the West. It had been said that the prowess of the contending parties would not be fully tested till they left skirmishing at long range and came to the deadly and decisive thrust of the bayonet. That experiment had now been tried, and the example was not thrown away upon the Northern ranks.

After a long period of comparative inactivity, as it seemed, though the necessary work of preparation was all the while going on, checked by various reverses, Mill Spring, breaking the line of the enemy in Kentucky, opened the South to our arms. It was hailed as the sure promise of success in the future. By no one were its omens more joyfully accepted than by the President and the new Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, who only a few days before had entered on the duties of his office. Immediately on receipt of General Thomas's first announcement of the victory, he issued, by order of the President, this General

valor displayed in battle will be acknowledged and rewarded in a fitting manner. The courage that encountered and vanquished the greatly superior numbers of the rebel force, pursued and attacked them in their intrenchments, and paused not until the enemy was completely routed, merits and receives commendation. The purpose of this war is to pursue and destroy a rebellious enemy, and to deliver the country from danger. Menaced by traitors, alacrity, daring, courageous spirit and patriotic zeal on all occasions, and under every circumstance, are expected from the army of the United States. In the prompt and spirited movements and daring at the battle of Mill Spring, the nation will realize its hopes, and the people of the United States will rejoice to honor every soldier and officer who proves his courage by charging with the bayonets and storming intrenchments, or in the blaze of the enemy's fire."

CHAPTER LII.

CAPTURE OF FORTS HENRY AND DONELSON, AND RE-OCCUPATION OF NASHVILLE, FEBRUARY, 1862.

SIMULTANEOUSLY with the first move- | rebel stronghold at Bowling Green, Gen. ments of Colonel Garfield in Eastern Kentucky, the advance of General Thomas toward the position of General Zollicoffer, and the concentration of General Buell's great army in front of the

Halleck was busy in his department of Missouri setting on foot the necessary preparations for a most important series of operations against the left of the enemy's line on the Mississippi and the

northern state boundary of Tennessee. The outermost Confederate defences of the great central region of the South lay in an irregular line between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi. Kentucky being chosen for the battleground to the west of the mountains, as Virginia had been on the east. As Charleston, South Carolina, was to be defended on the Potomac, so New Orleans sought its protection by carrying the war towards the Ohio. Indeed, reversing the points of the compass from east to west, we may trace a curious parallelism in the two states. If Washington was threatened in the one quarter, Louisville was the object of attack on the other. As Fortress Monroe was a great basis of operations at one extremity, furnishing men and arms, so was Cairo on the west; and as the one had a menacing neighbor in Norfolk, so had the other in Columbus. What the line of the Kanawha was to northern Virginia, penetrating the mountainous region, the Big Sandy, with its tributaries emptying also in the Ohio, was to the defiles of Eastern Kentucky. What Manassas or Richmond was, in one quarter, to the foe, Bowling Green, a great railway centre, was to the other. As Virginia was pierced on the east by the James and the Rappahannock and the York, so was Kentucky on the west by the Cumberland and Tennessee; and as the Unionists held Newport News, a point of great strategic importance, at the mouth of one of these streams, so were they in possession of Paducah, a place of equal or greater advantage, at the entrance to another.

Commencing with Cumberland Gap, the key of Eastern Tennessee, the rebel defences swept along the southern border of Kentucky by the waters of the upper Cumberland at Mill Spring, thence westward to Bowling Green, dipping to the Cumberland in its lower course at Clarksville and Fort Donelson in Tennessee, the adjoining Fort Henry on the Tennessee river and ascending to Columbus on

the Mississippi. Such was the outline of General Johnston the Confederate Commander's line of defence in his Department of the Mississippi. It was chosen with great skill, and had it been regularly completed by the possession of Paducah and Smithtown, the entrances of the Tennessee and the Cumberland, its security, so far as advantages of position were concerned, would have been perfect. The mountain passes, the river courses, the railway centres and arteries, would all have been in the enemy's hands. One thing, however, was wanting to make the possession complete-an adequate force to hold the intervals between the different points. Following the irregular outline, there were some four hundred miles in all to guard, and the defence was concentrated at the different positions. Between Bowling Green and Mill Spring there were a hundred miles which might be crossed by the Union forces, flanking either of those positions ; consequently the latter fell without aid from its distant neighbor; and when one was taken the other became untenable. A most important advantage was lost to the enemy when, as we have seen, General Polk was anticipated by General Grant in his designs upon Paducah. The activity of a few hours in the movement of the transports from Cairo decided the fortunes of a campaign, and consequently affected the interests of the nation to an extent which it would be vain to attempt to calculate.

During the autumn and early part of the winter, much had been heard of the preparation by the Navy Department of the gunboats and mortar fleet at St. Louis and Cincinnati, and its gathering at Cairo for an onward movement down the Mississippi. The iron-covered gunboats were specially constructed for the service. They were broad in proportion to their length, so as to sit firmly on the water and support with steadiness the heavy batteries for which they were intended. The largest were of the pro

THE WESTERN FLOTILLA.

portion of about one hundred and seventy-five feet to fifty, drawing five feet when loaded. They were firmly built of oak with extra strength at the bows and bulwarks, and were sheathed with wrought iron plates two and a half inches in thickness. To ward off the shots of the enemy, the sides of the boats both above and below the knee were made to incline at an angle of forty-five degrees, so that they could be struck at right angles only by a plunging fire. The armament consisted of guns of the heaviest calibre. 84-pound rifled cannon were placed at the bows and 8-inch columbiads at the sides. The mortar-boats were about sixty feet long and twentyfive wide, and were surrounded on all sides by iron-plate bulwarks six or seven feet high. The huge mortar which they carried, bored to admit a 13-inch shell, with seventeen inches of thickness from the edge of the bore to the outer rim, weighed over seventeen thousand pounds; while the bed or carriage on which it was placed weighed four thousand five hundred pounds. From this formidable engine shells might be thrown a distance of from two and a half to three and a half miles. The vessels thus equipped were manned by seamen enlisted for the service, by western boatmen and volunteers from the eastern army, who being familiar with navigation appeared suited for this amphibious warfare. They were commanded by officers of the United States Navy, flag-officer Andrew H. Foote being placed in charge of the entire flotilla. This veteran officer, a native and resident of New Haven, Connecticut, was the son of the distinguished Senator from that State, Samuel A. Foote, whose resolutions in the Senate occasioned the famous debate between Webster and Hayne, in which the relative position of the North and the South was so eloqueutly brought into discussion. Having entered the navy in 1822, he was now in his fortieth year of service. He had seen much of the world in that time, and per

211

formed many arduous professional duties in the discharge of which he had become noted for his earnestness and efficiency. Deeply imbued with a religious spirit, he had turned his voyages to account in the service of philanthropy; defending the cause of the missionaries at the Sandwich Islands, organizing temperance societies among the sailors, and improving their condition on shore; and earnestly pursuing the suppression of the slave trade in his command of the Perry on the coast of Africa. On his return he published a record of his labors-a volume entitled "Africa and the American Flag." Eager for action, when action was demanded, he had with great spirit signally avenged an attack upon his men in his successful assault upon the Barrier forts in China, in his last cruise in 1858. At the commencement of the Rebellion he was in command of the Navy Yard at Brooklyn, whence in the autumn of 1861 he was transferred to the Ohio, as the successor of Commander Rogers, to superintend the preparation and take command of the western gunboat flotilla. A sound patriot, eminently a stickler for the honor of the flag in the face of all enemies, foreign and domestic, his heart was in the work, and he quickly proved, as was expected, his uncommon resolution and energy.

There were various preliminary movements, both by land and water, preparatory to the decisive expedition up the Tennessee, which resulted in the capture of Fort Henry. Early in January several important reconnoissances were made to Fort Jefferson and elsewhere on both sides of the Mississippi, towards Columbus, of which exaggerated rumors were spread abroad, representing them as the beginning of a grand advance intended for an immediate attack upon the enemy, and much needless indignation was expended by newspaper letter-writers who professed themselves disappointed in the loss of an opportunity to describe some great battle, for which they had laid up

« 上一頁繼續 »