USA > Illinois > The story of the Fifty-fifth regiment Illinois volunteer infantry in the civil war, 1861-1865 > Part 26
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It may not be amiss for us to look at ourselves as seen by the eyes of a gallant officer from New England, who twenty years after the war genially wrote of that day's scene thus:
One day a "coming man" rode by the camp of the Thirty-third; a tall, straight, grisly-bearded, hawk-eyed, blunt old soldier -- William Tecumseh Sherman. Behind him came his men, just in from the Missis- sippi, dusty and dirty, ragged and shoeless, hard marched as they had
28I
THE FIFTEENTH CORPS' BADGE.
been hard fought. It was the Fifteenth Corps of the Army of the Ten- nessee, Grant's own army which had won him his victories. After the disaster at Chickamauga, Sherman and his corps had been sent for by Halleck. On his way from Vicksburg Sherman had been appointed to the command of the whole Army of the Tennessee. He and his old corps, at the urgent call of Grant, had hurried along the road, fighting their way, bridging streams, repairing railroads and climbing over moun- tains, but pressing on to be in season to help win one more victory for their beloved and ever successful old chief. They rather despised the tidy camp of the Thirty-third as they passed it, its men's cleanly brushed coats, polished brasses and general marks of Eastern trimness and set- ting up, and discoursed of paper collars and other articles regarded in their eyes with contempt. They knew the Eastern men better on the long march afterwards, as they themselves came to be better known, and both mutually confessed their respect.
It was here that the men of the Fifteenth Corps awoke to recognition of the fact that they were behind the army fash- ion in having no distinguishing badge. While the soldiers of other corps organizations displayed everywhere glittering shields, crosses, clover leaves, arrows, acorns, stars, etc., we had no peculiar insignia. "What's your badge?" asked a Potomac man in spruce garb, well-blacked shoes and shiny equipments, of one of the begrimed veterans in our van, as it passed. "Badge is it?" replied the Irishman questioned, slapping his cartridge-box as he spoke, "why fourty rounds here to be shure, besides twinty in me pocket." No one in battle-field or on historic page has ever questioned our right to this the badge of our adoption.
A furious storm that night drenched every one through and through, until it seemed as though the very blood in our veins would be washed out. November 21st we crossed the swift river upon a frail pontoon bridge at Brown's Ferry, and waded three miles in mire through a steady pour until we reached the rear of some hills. on the peninsula opposite Chattanooga, where we encamped about noon. The forced march had ended at last. The next morning our brigade, without its camp equipage, moved five miles to the north- ward, and went into bivouac along the North-Chickamauga Creek, which we found filled with pontoons. From the sum- mit of a hill near by many of us sought and found a compre- hensive view of the two armies in their intrenched camps -
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FIFTY-FIFTH ILLINOIS INFANTRY.
the precipitous crest of Lookout, rising fifteen hundred feet above the river on the right of the line, and Missionary Ridge, stretching from the skirts of that mountain six miles north to the Chickamauga River, on the left. All along the rugged range Bragg's legions looked down as from the upper scats of an ampitheatre upon the camps of the Army of the Cumberland, the town, and winding Tennessee. Few more strikingly beautiful landscapes can be found in any land, and "the pomp and circumstance of glorious war," the thousands of white tents, the batteries periodically wreathed in white smoke, the marching and countermarching, the gay flags, the busy wagon trains moving to and from the depots of sup- plies -- all added attraction and impressiveness to the scene.
Monday, the 23d, we remained in the same position, and . received full instructions respecting an important and dan- gerous service for which the brigade had been selected, in connection with the grand strategy by which General Grant hoped to overwhelm the Confederate forces then holding Chattanooga in close siege. Certain officers and men of the Fifty-fifth Illinois and Eighth Missouri were instructed to carefully observe the position of the cavalry picket-posts along the opposite shore of the Tennessee, both by day and night. One hundred and sixteen pontoons, constructed in Chattanooga, had been secretly conveyed across the river . and by woods-roads to the creek where we lay, about a mile above its junction with the river. Every boat was manned by four oarsmen selected for their acquaintance with water- craft. The company commanders received special instruc- tions, and in turn informed their men. All guns were loaded but not capped, and no one was to fire on any pretence what- ever, unless by orders. To each boat wasassigned twenty- five men and officers. At about eleven o'clock at night the boats received their quotas, and the expedition started. The Eighth Missouri led, followed by the Fifty-fifth. The long line of pontoons floated silently down the narrow creek until the Tennessee was reached, and then hugged the west shore as closely as possible. Not a loud word was spoken; we hushed our very whispers, and the oars were carefully muf- fed. The impetuous river, swollen by the heavy rains, bore
283
PERILOUS NIGHT EXPEDITION.
us swiftly down, and the darkness was so dense under the clouded sky and in the shadows of the forest-lined shore, that we could hardly see the batteau next before or behind. The rebel picket fires on the opposite bank glimmered through the mist; we could see the guards throwing wood upon them, and once heard the challenge of a sentinel, but rarely was there any sound save the steady monotone of the river's rushing water.
The leading boat directed its course so as to run across the stream a little below the first picket-post, and the instant it struck the land the twenty-five men sprang ashore, quickly surrounded the sentinel and reserve guard, and quietly march- . ing them to the boat, landed them on the opposite side of the river, and then followed the other pontoons. The second boat in like manner took in the second outpost, and so on until all were seized. But one gun was fired, and that by the last sentinel captured, who in his nervous surprise, fired in the air; but this caused no alarm to the enemy. The Eighth Missouri and One-hundred-sixteenth Illinois landed above the mouth of Chickamauga River. The other regiments, follow- ing the lead of the Fifty-fifth and passing down three miles from the mouth of the creck, crossed the river at a point which had been selected, a lantern on the west shore serving as a signal to the oarsmen. Landing with intrenching tools, pickets were thrown out and a tete de pont was begun at once. Every man worked with a will, the ground was favorable, and in an incredibly short time quite substantial earth-works were thrown up. The oarsmen, as fast as their boats were unload- ed, hastened directly to the opposite shore, where the other troops of the Fifteenth Corps were in waiting to be ferried over. Before there was a glimpse of daylight, not only the whole of our own division, commanded by General Morgan L. Smith, but that of General John E. Smith-eight thou- sand men in all-were in line on the south bank.
The pioneers began constructing the bridge as soon as the landing was effected, each pontoon bringing over its portion of balks, chesses and anchors. The wagons of the train, with twenty-four extra batteaux, had been brought to the place of crossing, so that there was no delay, and as fast as
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FIFTY-FIFTH ILLINOIS INFANTRY.
the boats used for ferriage were needed, the oarsmen deliv- ered them, the construction going on simultaneously from both shores. The little steamer Dunbar also came up from Chattanooga to aid in transporting the forces. By noon the three divisions, with their artillery, were in battle array, marching three columns en echelon towards the railroad tun. nel at the northern end of Missionary Ridge, the right flank of Bragg's army. A fourth division, under General Jeff C. Davis, was crossing the completed bridge.
Our brigade was formed on the extreme left, and followed the course of the Chickamauga River in the advance. A dense mist which soon increased to a drizzling rain concealed the movement in some degree, alike from friend and foe. Two hills, the northernmost summits of the range, were : quickly gained, against no opposition but that of a skirmish linc, and artillery upon the ridge to the right. Intrench- ments were promptly made upon these, and batteries got into position. These two hills proved to be detached from the continuous crest called Missionary Ridge, by a deep val- ley, and from the tunnel by a steep hill covered with woods, upon the top of which was a section of artillery and a large force of infantry in a square redoubt built of logs, stone and earth. Over the tunnel was a strong battery of Napoleon guns. Beyond this stretched the unbroken ridge for miles, running in a straight line nearly north and south.
The Union cavalry had crossed the Tennessee behind the infantry, and passing the Chickamauga by a short pontoon bridge thrown across near its mouth, was already on its way to cut the railroad communications between Knoxville and Chattanooga. The First brigade was opposed by skirmishers in its advance, and, when these were pushed back, by artillery which did not long retard our progress. During the melee, however, we lost our brave leader, General Giles A. Smith, who was severely wounded by a bullet. The command devolved upon Colonel Tupper of the One-hundred-sixteenth Illinois. At night we intrenched the lines gained, and the Confederates were heard busily strengthening their defences. Orders came to renew the onward movement at dawn. The clouds fled from the sky, and the mists rolled up the hillsides
285
BATTLE OF MISSIONARY RIDGE.
and slowly vanished. The moon, thus unveiled for a time, soon became obscured by entering the earth's shadow, and thousands of sleepless men lay shivering on the ground, watching the waxing and waning of the eclipse. The air grew chillier, and wherever they could safely do so, the sol- diers built little fires to warm themselves and prepare coffee. These fires, gleaming brightly among the foot-hills, told our allies in the town that Sherman's part in the grand strategy had been thus far well done. General Hooker on the right, seven miles away, having been equally fortunate in the part assigned him, occupied Lookout Mountain.
The general plan of battle proposed for Wednesday, the twenty-fifth, was for General Hooker to cross the Chatta- nooga valley as rapidly as possible to Rossville, and facing north to envelope the loft flank, while Sherman, facing south, vigorously assailed the right flank of the Confederate army; and when Bragg should have weakened his centre in his efforts to resist these flank attacks, Thomas was to assault with his whole line. Shortly after sunrise the Fifteenth Corps began its advance, and General Corse's brigade was soon hotly engaged with the Arkansas and Texas brigades on the fortified hill. We were five miles from Chattanooga, strongly entrenched across the northern end of Missionary Ridge within musket shot of the tunnel, our left flank pro- tected by the Chickamauga River, our right within support of the left of the Army of the Cumberland. It was all- important for the Confederate commander not only to pre- vent our gaining another rod of ground, but to push us from what we had acquired; for over four divisions of veteran soldiers threatened his railroad communications, his base of supplies at Chickamauga Station, and his line of retreat. But the position on the hill above the tunnel was by nature the strongest defensible point on the whole Confederate line, and the movements of the enemy were entirely masked from us by the dense woods.
The day was cold, the air clear of mist, and from every elevation the extensive and enchanting landscape of which Chattanooga is the centre could be seen bathed in sunshine. Only occasionally the white puffs of smoke from the field
286
FIFTY-FIFTH ILLINOIS INFANTRY.
guns told that war's dread work was going on all along the six miles between us and Bragg's left; but no sounds even of artillery could break through the din of fierce conflict near at hand. The desperate charge of General Corse's men failed to carry the hill commanding the tunnel, but gained a threat- ening position to which they clung in spite of the repeated efforts made to dislodge them. On his right and left the divisions of Generals John E. and Morgan L. Smith advanced in support. Our brigade was moving directly towards the rear of the Confederate position, unopposed, but also unsup- ported, and nearing a hazardous position where a massed force of the enemy lay in wait; but about noon we were ordered by the right flank into close support of the attacking column, re-enforcements from General Howard's command coming to our aid on the left. The Fifty-fifth, in this move- ment through the woodland to reach the base of the hill assailed, encountered a sharp fire from artillery at close range. Shells were constantly bursting over, near and among us, but did astonishingly little harm, three men only being slightly wounded by them.
The contest continued for hours upon the same ground with varying success. Where we had hoped to find the enemy the weakest and least prepared, they were evidently in great force and amply fortified. General Bragg had sent regiment after regiment from his left to mass against us in the wooded gorge at the tunnel.
The command of the right wing of the Confederate army was vested in Lieutenant-General Hardee, and the forces directly confronting us belonged to the famous division of General Patrick Cleburne. This division had been ordered to Knoxville, and was already embarking upon cars when recalled,"after the successful Union attack upon Orchard Knob, November 23d. General Walker's division was brought from Lookout on the twenty-fourth to strengthen Cleburne, and upon the abandonment of that mountain, during the twenty-fifth, the divisions of Generals Cheatham and Steven- son were also moved to the extreme right. Some of the troops of the last named division were paroled prisoners from Vicksburg, faithlessly declared exchanged by the Con-
287
BATTLE OF MISSIONARY RIDGE.
federate War Department and forced into service. In a letter to the Richmond Despatch, dated on the twenty-fifth, "Sal- lust" says: "Finding that he could not withdraw his army in time, General Bragg has given orders to mass his whole available force on the right." From this it would seem that the Confederate leader had proposed to abandon the Mis- sionary-Ridge line, which accords with the assertion of a deserter on the twenty-second-information apparently dis- credited at the time by our generals. General Grant says:
"From the position I occupied I could see column after col- umn of Bragg's forces moving against Sherman." The Fif- teenth Corps in fact had, so far as was possible, completed the task assigned to it. In pursuance of the plan of battle the general assault was expected to be made before noon, but as is usual in complex tactics over large areas, unforeseen delays had arisen. General Hooker had no considerable force opposing him, for the troops that had garrisoned Lookout Mountain and the Chattanooga valley had marched to con- front Sherman. But the distance to Rossville was about five miles, and the bridge over Chattanooga Creek was found de- stroyed, causing four hours' detention.
Our position was undoubtedly becoming perilous, although few even of Sherman's generals were at the time aware, probably, that so powerful a force was menacing us, watching from covert of the forest for the favorable moment to become the assailants. It was past three o'clock before General Grant, finding that success would be imperilled if he waited longer for the van of General Hooker's force to appear, directed General Thomas to advance. The Army of the Cumberland moved steadily forward, unchecked by the deadly fire it met at all points, and drove the enemy in con- fusion from the lower line of riffe-pits; then, without halting for re-alignment, as the orders had contemplated, in the en- thusiasm inspired by conspicuous success, the men dashed onward up the steep ridge, and carried the main works that crowned the summit, hitherto considered impregnable. Chickamauga was avenged. General Hooker came up in good time from Rossville on the right. The battle was won, and Bragg's left wing, a disorganized mob, was madly flecing
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FIFTY-FIFTH ILLINOIS INFANTRY.
for the mountain fastnesses of Georgia. But night canie down upon the field before we could know of this success, and the troops at Tunnel Hill slipped away unmolested under cover of the darkness.
Our brigade had relieved a portion of the column of attack at dusk, and occupied a line of captured rifle-pits which we were busily engaged in reversing and improving, until an advance by a part of the division, about midnight, disclosed the fact that the tunnel and its guardian hills were tenanted only by the dead. Orders for pursuit came soon after, and at seven the next morning we marched from the battle-ground, crossed the pontoon bridge at the mouth of the Chickamauga river and proceeded ten miles over roads so muddy as to be alinost impassable for teams, following the line of the Charleston railroad. At Chickamauga Sta- tion, immense piles of corn, beans and army stores of all kinds were burning, and the highway was strewn for many miles with broken and abandoned wagons and camp equi- page. November 27th we marched beyond Graysville into Georgia, in a soaking rain. We could see the smoke of conflict across the valley where the fame of General Hooker, the hero of the "battle above the clouds," was temporarily put under a cloud by Pat Cleburne with the stubborn rear guard of Bragg's army, at Ringold Gap. November 28th wc effectually destroyed the railway track for miles, and began return northward the next morning, turning from the Chattanooga road to the castward through Julian's Gap, and marching seventeen miles. The following day we gained Charleston, on the Hiawassee, driving the rebel cavalry from the town.
During the last day's progress we met abundant evidence of the existence of a strong Union sentiment among the. population, and frequently little flags were affixed to the gate-posts to advertise the owners' devotion to the Consti- tution. One young woman, who stood in the doorway of a house in Cleveland waving the stars and stripes in welcome, was greeted with cheer upon cheer all along the column as it passed. Avowed loyalty to the flag here we knew to be something more than a sentimental declaration of prefer-
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289
THE MARCH TO KNOXVILLE.
ence. It meant suffering for conscience' sake; it meant the attestation of faith by endurance of insult, relentless persecution, and even captivity; it meant not seldom deadly feud between neighbors, estrangement in families, and the loss of nearly all that life holds dear. For this idyllic land, this sylvan Arcadia bearing every outward semblance of rural peacefulness and contentment, had witnessed scenes of unrestrained human passion, internecine strife and brutal cruelty, for which the war's history has few parallels.
The high road to Georgia was now open; the nitre beds upon which the Confederacy had placed its main reliance for the manufacture of powder, the coal-mines and found- ries were at last within our grasp. The Chattanooga campaign here properly ends. To the Fifty-fifth it had been a terribly laborious and exciting campaign, but one attended with marvelously small loss in view of the perils encountered. The effective force of the regiment was reported at two hundred and thirty-seven previous to the battles of November 24th and 25th. Its casualties in those engagements were but three :- James Howell and Marcus Hardenbrook of Company B, slightly wounded in the face by explosion of a shell, and Henry Reagger of Company C, slightly wounded in the hand by a shell.
There had been intense and outspoken anxiety at Wash- ington and in the North generally, lest General Burnside and his little army, besieged in Knoxville by Longstreet, should be overwhelmed by force or starvation. Reports had been coming to our ears long before the victory that he could not hold out longer than the first week in December, for want of provisions. By every communication from the War Depart- ment General Grant was warned to protect loyal Tennessee. Some of this vociferous uneasiness on the part of the author- ities at the Capitol turned out to be rather unnecessary. General Burnside proved able to take care of General Long- street when he became actively offensive, and although his brave soldiers suffered many privations until relieved by the . approach of Sherman's column, they were not reduced to such straits for food as the army of Rosecrans had been be- fore our coming to Chattanooga, nor as was our own division
19
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FIFTY-FIFTH ILLINOIS INFANTRY.
before it regained its camps. General Grant gave up earnest pursuit of Bragg to hasten succor for Knoxville. General Gordon Granger with two divisions had been sent forward immediately after the victory was decided, but the rate of his progress not being altogether satisfactory, Generals Mor- gan L. Smith's and Ewing's divisions of the Fifteenth Corps, and the divisions of Generals O. O. Howard and Jeff. C. Davis were ordered to follow, General Sherman having command of the six divisions.
The Fifty-fifth had now been a weck absent from its camp, whence it started out stripped for fight with two days' rations in haversacks. The weather was severely cold, ice forming nightly over the pools in the muddy roads sometimes nearly an inch in thickness, and all suffered greatly from want of : clothing. The knapsacks had been left behind, and most of the men had no blankets. The officers carried rubber blank- ets only, and these alone formed their bedding save when the bivouac chanced to be near a straw-stack or in the oak woods where leaves could be raked together; and such materials were usually rain-soaked. Soldiers disposed to be scrupulous about personal cleanliness could often be seen at night wash- ing their shirts in the creek and drying them before the camp-fire. The rations were almost exclusively corn-meal and such meat, fresh or salt, as our foragers brought in. We had but one wagon along for all uses, and were forced to rely exclusively upon the neighboring country for subsistence. One day the regiment feasted upon newly cured hams, tur- keys, fresh mutton and beef; the next, perhaps, it had little but corn-meal. Large quantities of excellent sorghum mo- lasses were found. Every mill we passed was set in motion to grind grain. One night all who had partaken too liberally of pancakes made of some flour got at one of these mills, were suddenly taken with violent qualms, and the cry of "poisoned mcal" began to be heard. But the trouble was soon ascertained to arise from "sick wheat," and the ill effects were brief. Poultry of every kind abounded; but gobbling and quack and cackle were speedily hushed in the land, and the army left of the abundance only bones and feathers be- hind. Even the patriarchal leader of the snowy flock was
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291.
FORCED MARCH TO KNOXVILLE.
not spared, as could be testified by a certain gourmand of Company G, who cooked one goose two or three days in suc- cession as he had opportunity, and, unable to disjoint the bird, turned it over to a man of Company I, who finally abandoned it in its undiminished integrity, swearing it was only a deceptive petrifaction.
From Chattanooga to Knoxville is a journey of eighty- four miles. Our forced march began December Ist, at noon, when we crossed the Hiawassee upon the railway bridge which had been partially saved from destruction and planked over. Our day's march of seventeen miles ended near Ath- ens. We had left the mountains and entered the lovely garden valleys of Eastern Tennessee -- a land of rich pas- tures and easily tilled farms, of pure, pebbly-bottomed streams and forests of valuable woods, of inspiring scenery and equable climate; a region favored with more natural attractions for human homes than almost any other in the world. On the second we marched twenty-four miles through Sweet Water, and on the third thirteen miles through Phila- delphia to Morgantown, where we were stopped by the un- bridged Little Tennessee, here over seven hundred feet wide, swift, and too deep for fording. The little village contained but few buildings, and these were quickly resolved into their primitive elements, to be rapidly reconstructed, under the direction of General James II. Wilson, into a bridge for the troops to pass over. During the night of the fourth we crossed, and on the fifth advanced fifteen miles to within a short distance of Marysville, which town we entered the next morning, meeting the other divisions coming up on converg- ing roads. We were less than fifteen miles from Knoxville. Longstreet, having been repulsed with great slaughter in an assault upon the works there, had withdrawn from the siege during the night of the fourth, and fled up the Holston valley. General Burnside courteously acknowledged his obligations to Sherman's army, and we turned southward again.
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