History of Sangamon County, Illinois, together with sketches of its cities, villages and townships, educational, religious, civil, military, and political history, portraits of prominent persons, and biographies of representative citizens, Part 55

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago, Inter-state publishing company
Number of Pages: 1084

USA > Illinois > Sangamon County > History of Sangamon County, Illinois, together with sketches of its cities, villages and townships, educational, religious, civil, military, and political history, portraits of prominent persons, and biographies of representative citizens > Part 55

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

General McClernand communicated General Grant's order to his division commanders the same evening, and used every possible exertion in order to secure success.

Five minutes before ten o'clock a. m., his col- umns of attack moved forward, and within fif- teen minutes, Lawler's and Landrum's brigades

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had carried the ditch, slope and bastion of a fort. Some of the men rushed into the fort, where they found a piece of artillery, and saw the men who had served it escaping behind an- other defence. All these daring men were shot down, except Sergeant Joseph Griffith, of the Twenty-second Iowa, who, recovering from the stunning effects of a shot, seized his loaded mus- ket, and captured and brought away thirteen rebels, who had returned and discharged their pieces. We are happy to say that this heroic soldier has been since promoted. The colors of the One hundredth and thirtieth Illinois were planted upon the counterscarp of the ditch, while those of the Forty-eighth Ohio and Sev- ent-seventh Illinois waved over the bastion.

The above particulars we have gleaned from General McClernand's valuable report to Gen- eral Grant. We shall give the remainder of what we have to say on this subject in his own words. Ile continues:

"Within fifteen minutes after Landrum's suc- cess, Benton's and Burbridge's brigades, fired by the example, rushed forward and carried the ditch and slope of a heavy earthwork and planted their colors on the latter. Crowning this brilliant feat with a parallel to Sergeant Joseph Griffith's daring, Captain White, of the Chicago Mercantile Battery, carried forward one of his pieces by hand, quite to the ditch, and double-shotting it, fired into an embrasure; dis- abling a gun in it nearly ready to be discharged, and scattering death and dismay among the rebel cannoneers.

" Men never fought more gallantly, nay, more desperately. For more than eight long hours they maintained their ground with death-like tenacity. Neither the blazing sun nor the deadly fire of the enemy shook them. Their constancy and valor filled me with admiration. The spec- tacle was one never to be forgotten.

" Alarmed for his safety, the enemy hastened to mass large numbers from his right and left on my front. *

* All my forces were now engaged. Failure and loss of my hard won ad- vantages became imminent.

"Advising General McArthur (who was on his way from Warrenton) of the state of affairs, I requested reinforcements, and notified General Grant of the fact. At 11 o'clock a. m., I also in- formed him that I was hotly pressed. * *

* Again, at 12 o'clock, that I was in partial pos- session of two forts, and suggested whether a vigorous push ought not to be made all along our lines.

"Responsively to these dispatches, General Grant directed me to communicate with General McArthur, to use his forces to the best advan- tage, and informed me that General Sherman was getting on well. This dispatch was dated 2:30 o'clock p. m. About the same time, I re- ceived information that General Quimby was coming to my support. *

" But MeArthur's division being several miles distant, did not arrive till next day; two brigades of General Quimby's division coming up late in the evening, and much exhausted, their services were not available, and night set in and termi- nated the struggle before either of these brigades could be fully applied; indeed, before one of them was entirely formed. My loss during this memorable day comprised three-fourths of my whole loss before Vicksburg. My whole loss was one thousand four hundred and eighty- seven, in killed, wounded and missing."

On the 30th of May, General MeClernand issued a congratulatory order to his troops, which was highly creditable to him and to them, but which seemed not to have been so well received by the General-in-Chief, on the ground that General McClernand's Adjutant had neglected to furnish General Grant with a copy. This omission was made the pretext for the dismissal of General McClernand from his command, and for his banishment from the department.

This congratulatory address is one of the most soul-stirring and powerful war papers we have ever perused, but it must be read entire in order to be appreciated, and it will not bear to be cut up into fragments.

On the 18th of June, General McClernand re- ceived the following dispatch from General Grant:

"GENERAL :- Inclosed I send you what purports to be your congratulatory address to the Thir- teenth Army Corps. I would respectfully ask if it is a true copy. If it is not a correct copy, furnish me one by bearer, as required by the regulations, &c."

To this General McClernand replied as fol- lows, on the same day:

"MAJOR GENERAL GRANT :- I have just re- turned. The newspaper slip is a correct copy of my congratulatory order, No. 721. I am pre- pared to maintain its statements. I regret that my Adjutant did not send you a copy promptly, and I thought he had."

The following order, dated the same day, was the reply received by General McClernand:

" Major General John A. McClernand is hereby relieved of the command of the Thir-

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teenth Army Corps. He may proceed to any point he may select in the State of Illinois, and report by letter to the headquarters of the army for orders. Major General E. O. C. Ord is hereby appointed to the command of the Thir- teenth Army Corps, subject to the approval of the President, and will immediately assume charge of the same."

To this General MeClernand replied that, having been appointed by the President to the command under a definite act of Congress, he might justly challenge General Grant's authority in the premises, but forbore to do so for the present. He also wished that any statement of fact in his congratulatory order, to which excep- tions might be taken, should be made the sub- ject of investigation, not doubting the result.

On the 23d of June, General MeClernand addressed a letter to the President of the United States, which sets forth the facts of his removal, and enters at some length into its pretended cause. He is at a total loss to account for the fact that he has been dismissed, and says he is in doubt as to what the real cause of his dis- missal was: " If my Adjutant delayed sending a copy of a harmless order, I was ignorant of it, and avowed my right at it. *

* It was impossible for me personally to superintend the routine of the Adjutant's office. The contents of the order (issued to my soldiers) were true, and reflected on no one, and were couched in no hurtful language. General Grant could only have arrested and tried me if I had offended. * * I ask for redress and that justice which it is the right of the humblest citizen to demand, and which it is the bounden duty of those having the power to afford.

" I challenge an investigation both of General Grant's conduct and my own," commencing with Belmont and terminating with Vicksburg, and he asks, indignantly, " If I was worthy to be trusted in leading the advance to Belmont, to Fort Henry, to Donelson, to Port Gibson, to Champion Hill and to Big Black; if I planned the successful battles of Arkansas Post, Port Gibson, Champion Hill and Big Black, and gained the largest, perhaps, the only measure of success at Vicksburg on the 22d; if, in all these battles, I either bore the brunt or a material part; if only two days before my dismissal and banishment General Grant deemed himself justi- fied in adding one division certainly and two other divisions contingently to my command, making it larger than the two others in my corps combined, why should I have been prescribed at the moment when it was supposed Vickburg

must fall, and the Mississippi river expedition, which I had early advocated, if not originated, would soon be crowned with success? What- ever may be said to the contrary, I am in no wise responsible for the failure at Vicksburg. General Grant planned that assault, and is alone responsible. *

* Many of his ablest offi- cers deemed it unwise and fatuitous. They could not see that an assault by an attenuated line of attack on the most elaborate works ever seen on this continent could eventuate in suc- cess."

In answer to various letters from General Mc- Clernand, he received from the Secretary of War a communication dated Washington City, August 29, 1863. The following is an extract:

"The President instructs me to say that no charges against you have come to his knowledge requiring an investigation by a court of inquiry, nor have any been made against General Grant which in his judgment require such an investi- gation. An investigation, therefore, will not be ordered."

General MeClernand then requested an inves- tigation of his own conduct as a United States officer in the present war, or if that may not be, of his conduct in connection with the Missis- sippi river expedition, or that from Millikin's Bend around to Vicksburg, and resulting in the fall of that place.

In answer to this reasonable application, Mr. Stanton says:

" The President directs me to say that a court of inquiry, in hearing any one of the subjects specified in that letter, would withdraw from the field many officers whose presence is indispensa- ble to the service. For these reasons, he de- clines, at present, your application."

A personal appeal was made to the Presi- dent, to which he replied that he was very "grateful for his services and the early interest which he took in the life-and-death struggle of the Union; that no charges requiring the inter- ference of a court of inquiry had been brought against him; that General Grant's statements of his reasons for dismissing General MeClernand he (Mr. Lincoln) had never seen nor sought to see; that his interference between them could not but be of evil effect, and that it was better to leave it where the law of the case had placed it; that the permanent estimate of what a Gen- eral does in the field is fixed by the 'cloud of witnesses' who have been with him in the field, and that, relying on these, he who has the right needs not to fear!"

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In his report of the operations of the 22d, General Grant intimated that the position which he occupied at the time gave him a better opportunity of observing the move- ments of the Thirteenth Army Corps than the commander of it enjoyed. He says: "I could not see McClernand's possession of forts, nor necessity for reinforcements, as he had repre- sented, up to the time I left, which was between twelve m. and one p. m., and I expressed doubts of their correctness,-which doubts the facts sub- sequently, but too late, confirmed."

Now, to this, General McClernand replies:

" General Grant was about a mile and a-half to the right of my position, which was a com- manding one-only five or six hundred yards in the rear of the center of my advance and of the enemy's works. I did see flags of my corps planted on the enemy's works, and did see officers and men of my command enter them, and rebel captives brought out by them."

General McClernand proves these statements by testimony, in addition to General Lawler's dispatch, stating that "we ought to have rein- forcements," and to that of Colonel J. Landrum, commanding the Second Brigade, both of whose commands formed one of General McClernand's columns of attack-who ( Landrum) says "our men are holding the flanks of the fort in our front," we will here submit a few extracts from the letters of respectable gentlemen who were eye witnesses to what they attest.

WV. M. Stone, Colonel of the Twenty-second Iowa, says: "I was in command of the Twen- ty-second Iowa, which regiment was in the Second brigade, Fourteenth division of the Thirteenth army corps. On the evening of the 21st of May, I was served with a notice, (or copy) of an order directing the assault to be made next day, at 10 a. m. I was informed by my brigade commander, General Lawler, that I would have the advance, and that I could ap- proach any point of the enemy's works I con- sidered the most salient, and in any form I thought proper. Between sundown and dark I went up to within fifty yards of the enemy's lines. My observation satisfied me that the fort next the railroad could be carried more easily and with less sacrifice than any other point in our front, and I determined to direct my regi- ment against it. I took my regiment over the hill in front of Maloney's siege battery that night, and had it in readiness for the morning's work.

" At a little before 10 o'clock next morning, by my time, I received the order to advance, and

I did so immediately and directly against the fort, * and within ten minutes from the time we started, my men entered it and held it to my knowledge for over an hour. The fort was small and the open space inside very limited, and but few men could find room in it.

"When the enemy were driven from the fort, they also retired from the rifle-pits. on our right between that and the railroad. The Eleventh Wisconsin had also advanced against the second fort, some three hundred yards from the first one, and I saw the enemy leave that one. They also retired from the pits between the two forts, and went down the hill into the ravine beyond, toward the city. I stood with Lieutenant Colonel Dunlap, of the Twenty-first Iowa, on the highest and most exposed point, near the fort. We saw them leave, and conversed about it. I sent word back to General Carr to send me a brigade and I would hold the works; I re- garded the thing as easily done. I do not know that my message reached the General. I then regarded the door to Vicksburg as opened, and so said to Colonel Dunlap. * ** *

"I ordered the color-bearer of the Seventy- seventh Illinois to bring up his colors, as mine were down in the hollow on the left, and my own men planted them on the top of the fort. Soon after this my own colors were brought up and placed beside them. They remained there, to my knowledge, till six o'clock in the evening.

"Had we been reinforced at any time before noon by a fresh brigade, I have no doubt that the whole army could have gone into Vicksburg. I stated this opinion to several after I went back. There were no interior works at that time in the rear of the works we held, as I could see far be- yond. Maloney's battery of siege guns was about five hundred yards directly in the rear of our position, and commanded a fine view of all our movements. I do not know where General Mc- Pherson's headquarters were, but I should think there was no point from which our operations could have been so correctly observed as from this battery. General Grant was at or near Mc- Pherson's headquarters according to his report. W. M. STONE, Late Colonel Twenty-second Iowa."

Harvey Graham, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Twenty-second Iowa, says:

"It is my firm conviction and belief that had the Thirteenth Army corps been re-inforced by a few brigades, thus enabling you to send support to the front, the success of your command would have been complete. Victory was in your hands, but was wrested from you by superior numbers."

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HISTORY OF SANGAMON COUNTY.

In fact, Colonel Graham confirms the testimony of Colonel Stone in every particular, so that it would be but repeating the same thing to give his letter in full. So does Major Atherton, of the Twenty-second Iowa. Sargeant Rugg, Company A, Seventy-seventh Illinois Infantry, certifies that he saw the flags of the Seventy- seventh planted on the rebel forts, and that the National colors were afterwards carried in and captured, together with a number of men, after nightfall.

To all this, add the testimony of Lieutenant Colonel Warmoth, Captain Mason, Captain Blount, of the Seventeenth Ohio Volunteer In- fantry, and a whole "cloud of other witnesses" too numerous to mention, but which may be consulted in General McClernand's Protest.

We here subjoin a brief synopsis of General McClernand's summing up of this evidence. He says:

" These documents not only prove all I have denied or approved, but they prove more. They prove the promptness of my assault; the planting of my colors on the enemy's works, and their occupation by my men; that prisoners had been captured and brought out of the fort assaulted by Lawler and Landrum; that an officer brought word to me afterwards that the same fort was ours and that it should not be further fired upon. That Lieutenant Colonel Graham, of the Twenty- second Iowa, wrote a note inside the fort stating it was ours, and that the Twenty-second Iowa advanced against one fort and the Eleventh Wis- consin against another; that Colonel Stone saw this himself, and saw the enemy retire from both.

"They prove that I could have used more men in making my assault (which General Grant de- nies,) and with timely reinforcements would have crowned with success; that my position was much more favorable than General Grant's for seeing what was going on in front of my lines; that my position was near the center of my line and only five or six hundred yards from the enemy's works, while that of General Grant was about a mile and a half, to the right of my position; that my dispatches to General Grant were a qualification rather than an exaggeration of my success; and that the reinforcements, finally ordered by General Grant, did not arrive in time.

" General Grant says that the works entered by Sergeant Griffith, from their position, could give no practical advantage, unless others to the right and left of it were seized and held at the same time.

"Is not this assertion too broad? Is not this as much as to say; that no practical advantage could have been derived from taking any part less than the whole of the enemy's works at once *

* that the only condition of our sue- cess was the impossible one of carrying the whole of the enemy's line, which was larger than our own, at once, and consequently, that our attack must have been by line instead of by column, as he directed; and yet, strange enough, he censures me for asking the co-operation of a simultaneous attack, according to the terms of his original plan, and without which, according to his own admission, no practical advantage could have resulted from Griffith's partial suc- cess. By his own showing, I only asked for what his original plan promised, and what, by his own admission, was neccessary to our sue- cess.

"This, of itself, is a sufficient refutation of the charge, that what I asked for makes me re- sponsible for the increase of our mortality list by full fifty per cent. No! General Grant's order of the 21st of May makes him responsible, not only for my loss, but for our whole loss. He knew well our diminished numbers, then exhausted, and the roughness of the ground, and he had at least a partial knowledge of the enemy's strong position. This order for the as- sault of the 22d, was deemed by all judges as an unfortunate one, and more likely to bring disaster upon ourselves than upon the enemy."

General McClernand's removal struck the offi- cers and men of his command with astonish- ment and surprise. When they heard of it they rushed in crowds to his tent. and many, with tears in their eyes, expressed their deep sym- pathy, and they presented a written address to their General, replete with confidence and regard.

But his friends and former constituents at home were no less surprised and grieved at this event than the brave soldiers and officers who were so long his comrades and the sharers of his toils and dangers. The people were anxious and impatient to learn the cause, and hundreds of his townsmen flocked to his mansion to ascer- tain it, but the General was careful not to utter a word, or even a hint, that might implicate his military superiors in blame, He merely assured his friends, and they believed him, that he had faithfully discharged his duty to his country, and had done no act of which he or they could feel ashamed, and that he hoped a speedy inves- tigation, which he had petitioned for, would re-instate him in his proper position before the country and the world.

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HISTORY OF SANGAMON COUNTY.

General McClernand was invited to speak at various publie meetings, and wherever he went he was received with marks of approbation and enthusiastically cheered for the noble and patriotic course he had pursued.

So long as our noble language shall endure, his great speech at Indianapolis, on the 20th of August, 1863, will be read with admiration and delight by every lover of liberty and pure demo- cratic government in the country or in the world. We cannot find space for this speech, and it must be read entire to do it justice. We must, however, give one brief extraet:

" It is said, however, that we cannot conquer the rebellion. And indeed is that so? Is it not an insult to loyal men and to the North to say so? What! twenty millions of freemen not able to uphold the Constitution and the laws against the efforts of eight millions of rebels? What! the right, backed by wealth and power and National renown, not able to put down the enemy? What! a people who have voluntarily poured out their blood and treasure, as the peo- ple of the North have done, not able to vindi- cate their superiority in this contest? He who says so, if not a traitor himself, is not in sympa- thy with the earnest, enthusiastic, determined masses of the North.

"When and where were North men finally subdued? Never! Their arms conquered the ' Roman World.' Their enterprise compassed the globe itself. Their genius is dispelling the superstition of ages, and everywhere illuminat- ing the path of man to a higher and nobler civ- ilization. As the great blazing orb of day itself, they have coursed the earth and left a radiance behind, tracing in light the track of their glor- ious transit."

The following extract from the Jacksonville Journal, will illustrate the popular feeling to- wards General McClernand at that time. This is a report of a mass meeting held in that town in the summer of 1863, for the purpose of giving the General a reception after his removal from bis command before Vicksburg. The Journal says:

"His (McClernand's) exposition of the objects of the Union, the causes of the war, the end, objects and deep criminality of the conspirators, of the infamy and final utter ruin of all who either co-operate or sympathise with them, whether in the North or South, was truthful and just in all points, statesmanlike and philosophi- cal, and in many points peculiarly eloquent and fervid."

His letter to the President, taken in connec- tion with the well known subsequent events in his military career, clearly show that the great Northwest owe, to say the least, as much to Gen- eral McClernand, for the opening of the Missis- sippi river and the fall of Vicksburg, as to any other man.

Innumerable testimonials of the same kind might be added, had we the space to record them.

Having long waited, in the hope that some inquiry should be made into the case, and that justice should be done to him, and having re- ceived no answer from Washington to his pro- test up to the 15th of December, he frequently urged his friends to remind the President of his case. Governor Yates, being in Washington, called the attention of the President to General McClernand's protest, who replied that he had not yet read it, but that he would do so as soon as he got time.

At last he wrote the following letter to the Hon. Lyman Trumbull:

"SPRINGFIELD, Ill., December 15, 1863. Hon. Lymun Trumbull, U. S. Senator:

DEAR SIR :- I believe you are aware of the reason that has restrained me from resigning my military commission. It is because friends, both of the President and myself, have protested against it. I have been led to believe that both were averse to such a step. If I am mistaken in this, so far as the President's views are con- cerned, or if I am not to be made useful by being assigned to an active command, I wish to know it. In either case, I shall resign, and re- lieve both the President and myself from fur- ther trouble. I think, however, that the Presi- dent should indemnify my public character by placing it in as favorable a light as he found it. Let him say to the people I have done well, or show wherein I have done ill. If he has read the papers I have forwarded to him, he must be convinced that gross and cruel injustice has been done to me. If he would summon me before him, I doubt not that I would be able to turn the tables upon my enemies. Can you enlighten me upon this point? If the task is not an un- gracious or troublesome one, oblige me by doing so.

Your obedient servant,

JOHN A. MCCLERNAND."

To the above letter, General MeClernand re- ceived the following answer, dated at Washing- ton, December 20, 1863:

"Major- General John A. Mc Clernand:

MY DEAR SIR :- I had had a conversation with the President in regard to your position, before the receipt of yours of the 15th.

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The President is aware that you have been unjustly treated, and in reply to my suggestion that he ought to do something for you, stated that when he got another matter off his hands (alluding to the Missouri troubles), he would see what could be done for you. Hon J. Gillespie was present at the interview, and, should you meet him, he may be able to tell you more par- ticularly what occurred, though I have given you the purport. I shall endeavor to see the Presi- dent again at an early day.

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History of Sangamon County, Illinois, together with sketches of its cities, villages and townships, educational, religious, civil, military, and political history, portraits of prominent persons, and biographies of representative citizens, Part 55

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago. [from old catalog] Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Chicago, Inter-state publishing company Number of Pages: 1084

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago, Inter-state publishing company
Number of Pages: 1084