History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, Part 8

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. ; O.L. Baskin & Co.
Number of Pages: 948

USA > Illinois > Union County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 8
USA > Illinois > Pulaski County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 8
USA > Illinois > Alexander County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 8

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Some families were made destitute by the flood, but these were so promptly provided for by the more fortunate citizens that no real cases of suffering ensued. Charity was offered the people from other cities, but the plucky Cairoites said "No ; we can and are providing for our own people."

We can get no reliable estimate of the dam- age financially that the people of the town suf- fered. Many poor people whose loss in dollars and cents was small, yet to them it was great because it was their all. But under the cir- cumstances, and considering that the visitation was upon the entire town, and each one lost more or less, the aggregate was not large, not near so large in property as in the disrupting of established business, the destruction of con- fidence and the general bad odor it attached to Cairo's already grievous burdens in this respect. It was the suffering by the city, as a city, that brought more damage than all the water in- flicted. The general revulsion that followed, the depreciation of property, the loss of con- fidence-these formed a sum of damages that cannot be estimated in dollars.

There was no perceptible rise in the rivers after the breaking of the levee, and the waters began rapidly to recede. In less than two weeks the city was dry again, and every day the citizens were returning to their homes; logs.

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

and rubbish were cleared from the streets, houses were repaired and re-painted, and fences re-built, and but a few months had passed when the prominent marks of the flood had been cleared away-wiped out forever.

The two years following the submersion of Cairo formed probably the most trying period of her history. Real estate dropped its former high figures, and purchasers could buy at al- most their own figures, but the shock public confidence had received prevented investments, and business being in a measure deadened, there was no incentive for improvement strong enough to move to action those who had for- merly invested. Rival interests eagerly pro- claimed the downfall of the city, and confident- ly predicted it would never attempt to rise again, and there were many in Cairo and out of it who were ready to believe the blow had proved effectually crushing. But the repair- ing, widening and strengthening the levees and expending vast sums in this work, soon created a better feeling at home and helped to inspire confidence abroad, and by the end of the sec- ond year after the overflow, property had about regained its former value and the business of the place its accustomed tone; and as time wore on, and the heights and proportions of the levees increased, confidence in the habita- bleness of the locality gained its original standard.

In 1861, Cairo had recovered wholly from the overflow, and her population had increased to a little over 2,000 souls, the census of 1860 showing a population for Alexander County of a little over 4,000. The town had recovered slowly, but its foundations had been solidly built and the levees had been made the strong- est and safest in the world.

In April, 1861, the great civil war was fully inaugurated. The majority of the people of Cairo " knew no North, no South, no East, no West, but the Union, the whole Union, one and inseparable, now and forever." They had

hoped, up to the last hour, that in some way the bloody issue would be spared the country once more. A military company, armed and uniformed, and composed of nearly all the young men of the town. met and drilled at their hall regularly every week. They met one evening, and after their usual exercises they engaged in a social meeting and talked over the then absorbing subject of the war. It was evident that it was then upon the country. Lincoln had called for 75,000 troops, and Seward had proclaimed that it would be fought out in ninety days. Several of the Cairo braves made "talks," and the meeting finally passed some " armed neutrality " resolutions and ad- journed. During all that night the incoming trains were freighted with United States sol- diers, and when the Cairo soldiers got up in the morning, the streets and woods were full of them. And the Cairo company never met again. It is due the Cairo boys to say that about every one of them joined the Union army, and, still more to their credit, it is said that every one of them rose to honorable, and many of them to eminent promotions. The immediate effect of the occupation of the place by the military was to check im- provements and paralyze business. This largely resulted from the fact that some of the early commandants of the place were ignorant fanaties, and who proposed to treat every Democrat as a traitor, and visit all with a heavy hand. Then, the further fact, that neither the Government nor troops had any money here at that time, and the business means of the city were absorbed in advancing supplies on eredit. But when the Government commenced distributing money here to the troops and its creditors, then a far more grat- ifying condition of affairs was at once inaugu- rated. Our merchants, mechanics and laborers were reimbursed for what they had advanced, and at once an unusual activity not only marked every department of business, but new

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

branches of trade were introduced, the old ones were multiplied and a vigor, which had never before been felt, characterized the entire city. Cairo was the great gateway between the North and the South. It was a military post of vast importance. Thousands of soldiers were stationed here, forts erected, and still other thousands of soldiers were daily passing through the place. Green- backs were plenty and morals became scarce. Many unblushing outrages, which were never punished, were committed upon citizens by the demoralized soldiers. But the war adver- tised Cairo more than had all else in her bis- tory as an important and commanding point on the continent, and business and capital was attracted here in an unparalleled degree. And by the spring of 1863, Cairo was, for the third time, in the glories of flush times. New houses were going up on every hand that were always rented before finished, and, for a village,_often at enormous figures ; but the new-comers were on a race for some place to shelter their fam- ilies, and they rarely hesitated about the price of the rent. Everybody was making money, and spending it freely and lavishly. The evi- dences of this were well given in the swarms of gamblers that came here and were busy plying their vocation, until finally, so systemat- ically were they robbing the soldiers, that rigid military orders were issued in regard to them, and some were put in irons.

Gen. Prentiss came here, we believe, in charge of the first arrivals of soldiers, and assumed the command of the post. He was superseded by Gen. Grant, who was here so long that he almost became a citizen. He had his office in the bank building, on Ohio levee, now occupied as a law office by Green & Gil- bert. The present old settlers of Cairo all came to know Grant quite well while he was here. John Rawlins came here with Grant and was his factotum in office headquarters, and Washington Graham, a citizen and business

man of Cairo, was Grant's factotum outside. Graham had extensive business ambition, and he was shrewd enough to know and under- stand Gen. Grant and quickly formed the closest intimacy with him. He spent his money on the General like a prince, and he was soon the power behind the throne. He bought the best of cigars by the wholesale, and constantly kept the liquid commissary department at headquarters abundantly supplied. Wash- ington Graham, had he lived during the war, would have, beyond doubt, extended bis in- fluence and power just as Grant was advanced along the line of promotion. He was a man of genial nature, strong social powers, and shrewd sense-exactly the kind of man who liked to be the power behind the throne, and wielding that power, when opportunity offered, to put money in his purse, and to make the fortune of his friends and pull down remorselessly his enemies. He soon became essential to the Grant party in all its junketing on the rivers. and was a member of headquarters' mess on the steamboat in the expedition to Paducah and to Fort Donelson. Grant liked him and his liberal ways from the first of their acquaint- ance, and when he was stricken down with con- sumption and went to his friends in St. Louis to die, it must have seemed to Gen. Grant a serious affliction. The General must have loved all jolly, liberal men. No man in the world could play his role better than Washington Graham. Gen. Grant's family were here for some time with him, and had living-rooms across the hall from his head- quarters. At that time the family seemed to be very plain, unpretending people. Bill Shuter's extensive establishment was the alma mater of much of the enthusiastic patriot- ism of those days, as well as some of the early strategic movements of the war in the West.

Among the first military movements of Gen. Prentiss after he was placed in command of the

Eleni Leavenworth

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

forces at Cairo, numbering 4,800 men, was to formally demand the arms of the Cairo Guards. As the company had dissolved into the air im- mediately upon the coming of the soldiers, the General could find no one to respond to his flag of truce demanding an unconditional surrender of the ordnances. But he found the keys to the armory, and the deadly weapons of war were taken possession of in the name of the United States and turned over to arm the Union soldiers.

The next and much more important move- ment was to look out for the steamers C. E. Hillman and John D. Perry, which he had been notified by Gov. Yates had been loaded with arms and ammunition and were on their way South with their cargoes. When the boats® reached Cairo they were boarded and brought to the wharf. A large number of arms and ammunition were seized and confiscated-a pro- ceeding, at the time informal, but it was after- ward approved by the Secretary of War.

Gen. Grant's first battle in the war was Bel- mont, Mo., a point nearly opposite Columbus, Ky., where the rebels were in strong force, and had detached a small portion of the Columbus forces to occupy Belmont. Gen. Grant conclud- ed it would be an immense piece of strategy to capture Belmont, and thus relieve that por- tion of Missouri, and to some extent intercept all communications between the rebel forces of Kentucky and Missouri. So a fleet of boats sailed down the river, and a part of the force marched down by land from Bird's Point- the force from the river to land and attack in front, and the land force to come up in the rear, and thus pocket the enemy. The whole scheme was well devised, and the river force, reaching the grounds long before the land force, and so eager were officers and men for blood and glory, that they at once attacked. The river forces were under the immediate com- mand of Gen. Grant. They were hastily deployed from the boats, a short distance above

Belmont, formed in battle line, opened fire, and charged upon the enemy's encampment and captured it. But the tents were empty, mostly, and all hands were in deep indignation at the enemy for running away in such a dastardly manner. And the soldiers fell to work ripping up the tents, and prying into the culinary affairs of the enemy's camp, and exulting over their easy victory. Just when they had become pretty well scattered over the grounds, the enemy suddenly emerged from the woods, and at short range, opened a galling fire. The ad- vance of the land forces just then appeared, and for a few minutes the battle raged fiercely -the rebels charged, and the Union forces fled to the boats, and in a dreadfully un-dress-pa- rade fashion, and amid flying bullets the boats were loaded and steamed back to Cairo. From the manner in which the boats had been sprin- kled with shot, from buckshot to birdshot, and from many of the wounds in the clothes of the federals, the enemy must have been mostly armed with shotguns and fowling pieces. The land forces continued to return in straggling squads, to Bird's Point for a week, as some of them got lost in the river bottoms. The fed- eral forces had simply walked into a trap that had been set for them, and they escaped by the " skin of the teeth."

An incident of this battle is worth relating. When the Union forces captured the enemy's camp, as stated above, they found nobody at home, but they did find a female baby about three months old, sleeping peacefully on the bare ground, amid the roar of battle and the whistling bullets that played thick and fast all around it. There was no one to claim it, and a good Cairo citizen took the babe in his arms and brought it to Cairo. where it was taken in charge by Father Lambert, and a home provided for the little trophy of war. Nothing could ever be learned concerning the child, although every exertion was made to do so. It was duly christened a Christian, and

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

named " Belmont Lambert." The supposition is, that in the attack and firing upon the camp, the mother of the child had been killed, and as the father must have been a rebel soldier, it is probable he was killed in this battle, or in some other soon after, and it may be that no one of this father, mother and babe ever knew what became of the others. We know nothing of the history of Belle Lambert, after she was provided for here in Cairo, as an infant. If alive now, she is a grown woman, twenty-two years old. What a dream the strange story of her life must be to her. How she must have employed heavy hours of her young life in peering at every lineament of her features in the glass, trying to discover traces of her un- known father and mother, and having fixed them in her mind, as she supposed, how eagerly would she scan every strange face she met, in the vain hope, in all this multitude, of finding the long-lost and ideally formed and loved mother or father. Is there a mother's heart in all the world that is not melted at the story of this lost babe-the little angel waif, found un- harmed in the midst of slaughter and blood-a little flower of peace and love, sleeping sweetly amid all its hideous surroundings.

But to refer again, briefly, to the Belmont battle : There is a part of that story that is furnished us by a prominent and reliable gen- tleman of Cairo, William Lornegan, who was acting mate on the transport, Montgomery, that has never been told in print, and that will some day be essential to the truth of history. He says that one afternoon while the Montgomery was anchored in front of Cairo, Wash Graham came on board and ordered the Captain to coal at once, and drop down to Fort Holt,on the Ken- tucky side, and that when he received the signal from the flag-boat he was to swing out into the stream and follow. The Captain asked Graham what the signal was to be, and was answered, "five whistles." Then, for the first time, word passed around with the crew that they were

going to attack Columbus. Before that, they supposed they were going to be loaded with soldiers, and take them to Cape Girardeau, as they had made a trip or two of this kind al- ready. These troops, it was afterward known, were to march by land, and come upon Bel- mont, in conjunction with the water forces, and the Bird's Point forces. A force had been sent out from Fort Holt to make a similar detour upon Columbus from the east. Thus, by three columns, a land force on each side of the river and a fleet of transports and two gunboats by the river, the two places, Columbus and Bel- mont, were both to be captured. In accordance with instructions, the flag-boat passed down by Fort Holt about 4 o'clock, P. M., and gave the five-whistle signal, and the fleet of five trans- ports and two gunboats sailed down the river. Going about half way to Columbus, they round- ed to and tied up for the night. The next morning the fleet dropped down in full view of the Columbus bluff's, all over which were mounted the rebel cannon, commanding the river. About 9 o'clock in the morning, the forces were disembarked, and were marched toward Belmont. The gunboats dropped down a short distance below the fleet, and fired upon Columbus, theguns from the fort promptly re- sponding, sending their balls, from the first shot, closely about the transports-one ball falling just at the stern of the Montgomery, and splash- ing the water over the deck. The fleet moved out from this point, and took a position two and a half miles further up the river in a safe bend, and there listened at the progress of the fight at Belmont. The opening musketry was not of long duration, and then there was a long cessation, and the firing again commenced. Mr. L. tells us that he saw nothing of the fight at Belmont, and only learned from hearing the soldiers talk about it, that the enemy threw a force across the river from Columbus, and re- newed the fight. He says the first signs he noticed from the battle-ground was about sun-

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

down, when two soldiers appeared at the boat, one leading and helping the other, who had been wounded in the arm. They reported that the rebels had crossed over from Columbus, and were "cutting our men all to pieces." The transports at once dropped down to the point where they had landed the night before, so as to permit our forces, whom they learned were in full retreat before the enemy, to get on board. By the time they had landed it was dark, and by this time, our forces were coming. pell-mell-rank and file-officers and privates, in one indiscriminate mass on'board the boats. In the confusion, some one from the hurricane deck gave the mate the order to haul in his gang plank and cast loose. This was only done, when the Captain of the boat ordered the gang plank run out again, so as to permit the fast- coming soldiers to get on board. This was done, and then almost immediately the order was again given to cast loose, and this was obeyed, and the boat steamed up the river. The whole fleet was on its way, and the banks of the river were lined with rebels, pouring a hot fire into the boats. The rebels sent a battery across a bend up the river, intend- ing by this movement to capture or sink the entire fleet. As good fortune would have it, they only reached their position just as the boats passed, but so closely had they pursued them that they fired a num- ber of shots at the fleet. Mr. L. thinks that had the fleet been delayed thirty minutes longer, the capture of the Union army and fleet would have been complete. A number of soldiers were left on the bank, and they made their way to Bird's Point, as best they could, and for days and days these stragglers were coming in. Mr. L. says the fact of our forces not all being able to get on the boats was painfully manifested to his mind at the time by a conversation he heard Gen. Logan have with some other officer. Logan denounced what he called deserting these men to their fate, and was insisting the fleet

should return and take them on board. Mr. L. says when he heard this, he made up his mind he would swim ashore and walk home, rather than go back.

Wash Graham seems to have been the acting Admiral of the fleet, and so far as its actions were concerned,he managed his part of the battle with skill and snecess. Upon the return of the army to Cairo, everybody seemed to be laboring for several days under a general kind ofnebulous demoralization. But in a short time the troops were called back to Cairo, Bird's Point and Fort Holt, and the most of them put upon transports and sent to Paducah, Ky. The history of Grant's expedition up the river and the fights at Fort Henry, Heiman and Fort Donelson are a part of the war history of the country, and are not properly to be considered as an essential part of the history of Cairo ; although Cairo was the base from which the expedition started and on which it relied for material support. And although it is also true that there are men still living in Cairo who were in that expedition, and who were boat officers on the boat that ear- ried Gen. Grant, Wash Graham and staff, and whose recollection of much of the behind-the- curtain facts that took place on that boat, are essential to the truth of history, yet we do not care to lumber the story of the city of Cairo with them, but to the war historians who are to come-those who do not care to write a partisan account of the war, there may be found val- uable mines of truth among the war survivors at Cairo.

In another chapter, we give a tolerably broad insinuation of the kind of men among the first commandants of the post Cairo had during the early war times. Col. Boohfort was a crank and in his dotage ; he was a silly old vicions creature.threatening everybody-"I'll have you shot, sir ! Have you shot !" or in his more rational moods threatening to put them in irons. He had a whole company of his own men ar- rested one day and was going to have them shot

HISTORY OF CAIRO.

as usual, because in riding by their camp he heard them singing " My Mary Ann, " when it turned out that that was his wife's name. A Cairo butcher's team ran away one day and at full speed, the driver trying his best to stop them, they ran across his parade grounds, and when the old man saw his sacred grounds thus sacrilegiously invaded, he screamed at the poor, helpless driver as far as he could see him, "I'll have you shot ! Arrest that man ! etc." The people, however, soon learned that he was as vain as he was weak, and they wound him around their finger by a little fulsome flattery and bragging on him as being the greatest Gen- eral in all the world. Yet his presence was a dreadful affliction to the place. They greatly feared and despised him, and there were few in the town but that rejoiced when he was taken away. His successor was, we believe, Gen. Meredith, of Indiana-a soldier and a gentleman, and better still, a man of good sound sense. His presence gave cheer and hope again to the people, and once more men could go and come from their homes to their business with- out fear and trembling. The result was, the business and the prospects of the town were soon in the most flourishing condition. Then, some of the commandants of the post in the town were sometimes cursed with painfully offi- cious and dishonest Provost Marshals. And when one of these fellows was in command of the Provost guards that patroled the city, and did police duty, he had it in his power and some- times did perpetrate scandulous ontrages upon private citizens. They were blackmailers, clothed with power to compel terms from their victims. The people had to appease these sharks by frequent voluntary subscriptions to buy pres- ents from their admirers, in the way of fine swords. horses, watches, and champagne, cigars and whisky. These subscriptions were taken up by passing around a subscription paper, and each man would put down his name and not less than $5, and thus he paid his tax

to be let alone so that he could carry on his business. It is incredible how many ways these rascals could invent to bring men face to face with the alternatives of blood-money, or iron manacles. A specimen that may illustrate all: A large lot of rebel prisoners were passing through town, after the Fort Donelson fight, and they were standing in front of the business houses on the levee; the weather was wretched, and the poor creatures were the picture of dis- comfort ; they wanted clothing, food, and, es- pecially, tobacco. At a tobacco store where several prisoners had begged a little tobacco, two or three rebel officers entered and wanted some of the weed, and all the money they had was Confederate bills. The tobacco was given to them, only a few plugs, and the Confederate money was taken as a curiosity. The Provost- Marshal a few days after arrested the members of the firm and fined them $100 for taking Confederate money. They paid the bill, and, of course, the Government never saw a cent of the money. " Oh, patriotism ! patriot- ism ! what atrocities have been committed in thy name." Another instance of legal honesty will suffice for our purpose, without any further reference to the thousands of others of a char- acter incomparably worse : An official ap- proached a merchant and wanted to buy forty or fifty suits of clothes. He said he did not care what they were so they were cheap, very cheap, anything, any style, second-hand or rebel captured uniforms, or anything else that could be classed as suits. The goods were promptly got ready for delivery at about $2.50 a suit. The officer looked at them, took them and instructed the merchant to make out his bill at $22.50 a suit. And upon his paying in cash the difference in the real price and the bill, he received his voucher for the whole amount.

When the Union forces wrested the Missis- sippi river from the grasp of the rebels, and made this great highway again a free channel

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History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, Part 8

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892? Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Chicago, Ill. ; O.L. Baskin & Co. Number of Pages: 948

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. ; O.L. Baskin & Co.
Number of Pages: 948