USA > Indiana > Jay County > Historical hand-atlas, illustrated : containing twelve farm maps, and History of Jay County, Indiana > Part 67
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General Shanks, then on General Fremont's staff, by appointment of the President, on the Sunday following the battle of Cross Keys, West Virginia, called on the President for twenty thousand troops for General Fremont's command to be taken from the forces of Mcclellan, then lying idle at Alexandria, Virginia. The President said that he would go on Monday to see MeClellan and let him know Monday evening, at which time he told General Shanks to eall. At the time appointed, the President informed Shanks that Mcclellan could not spare the troops, and Colonel Lovejoy, wlio was present, tells that Shanks, much disappointed, again asked for the troops, wheu Lincoln replied, "Shanks, I have said they can not be spared," to which General Shanks rejoined, " Mr. President, if you had said so before, I would not have pressed my request further, but you said that Mcclellan could not spare them, and I tell you that I can take twenty thousand men from his eounuand, and he will not know it," and Mr, Lincoln replied, "I am afraid that is true," and Mr. Lincoln and Lovejoy laughed ueartily, but Shanks, who was in serious earnest and knew that General Fremont needed more men for immediate active service, did not even smile, but he added, "Mr. President, General Frewont thinks that your haud is upou him," to which remark Mr. Lincoln answered, "I desire you to say to General Fremont for me that I say he has done all that any human being eould do with the meaus I put into his lands."
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PERSONAL HISTORIES-Concluded.
On the 6th of December, 1863, General Shanks moved his regimeut, the Seventh Indiana Cavalry, organized as already stated, hy Cairo, Illinois, and Columbus, Kentucky, to Union City, Tennessee, and on the 14th he sent a detachment under Major Beck toward Paris, Tennessee, by way of Dresden. The rebel cavalry were found in large force at Mckenzie Station under Colonel Forkner of Forrest's command.
Major Beck prudently retired, and was reinforced by the arrival of General Shanks with three hundred cavalry, and the latter with the whole command moved at once for the enemy, but on his arrival at Dresden, he was ordered by General A. J. Smith, commanding the department, to camp at Union City. On the 24th of December the regiment moved with a force under command of General Smith into northern Mississippi for the purpose of cutting off the rebel General Forrest, The weather was intensely cold, and it will long he remembered as the coldest New Year.
Generał Shanks received from the commanding general great praise for the fine condition and soldierly bearing of his regiment. It took position in front, flauk, or rear, as occasion requiicd. General Shanks, ever watchful, was never surprised by the enemy in all his service during the war.
His uniform instruction to his officers, when sent on detail service, was, " We came to surprise others and not to be surprised."
The enemy were concentrated near Paris, Tennessee, and they fell back, retreating rapidly past Jackson, Tennessee, into Mississippi.
The whole command then returned from Jackson, Tennessee, to their camp at Union, Tenuessee, when General Shanks was ordered with his regiment to take tommand at Hickman, and soon after to move from thence near Colier- ville, Tennessee, crossing the Obion river, swollen hy the rains, with horses and men, against the urgent protest of old citizens, who came to notify him that the stream was impassable, but he thought it was not.
One of his men said to his companion near him. "We can not cross fiere," and the other replied, "That depends upon whether Shanks wants to pass over." General Shanks, overhearing their conversation, said, " We will cross," and they crossed over.
On arriving at Hatchie river, he found the water high and uo means of crossing. He forced a passage with some men on a raft, and then made boats of railroad and depot timbers, on which his baggage and remaining forces were taken over.
Camping at the town on the opposite bank, his men were fired on in the uight. On the next morning he called the principal property-owners togetber and told them that if another shot was fired on his men, he would burn every building in the place. This ended the trouble. From this point he opened communication with Memphis, Tennessee, hy some fighting, and at Collier- vdle he reported his command to General Grierson and General W. S. Smith, the latter in command of the expedition into Mississippi, to relieve and to join General Sherman, then on his march from Vicksburg to Selma. Alabama.
After a severe march, Forrest's rear guard was overtaken, at a place called Egypt, in Mississippi, when a sharp skirmish took place, resulting in a loss to the regiment in killed and wounded. Having destroyed the railroad there, the Union forces moved on to the Bigbee river. a tributary of the Tombigbee, and there camped on the night of February 19, 1864, and on the morning of the 20th, to the great surprise of the army of seven thousand cavalry, in fine condition and good spirits, and while under fire from Forrest's forces from across the stream, General Smith gave orders to retire, when excitement at once ran along the lines. General Shanks saw this and immediately called his officers together, directed them to put their men in position and inform them that they had come to that point to hold the rebel forces from General Sherman in his march, and that, having accomplished that object, they would now return, and that the attacks that would be made on our retreating forces was what be expected, and it need not canse any alarm, but to keep in proper marching order and that all would be well, and that it was not an enforced retreat. This ruse of General Shanks in all probability saved the army of General Smith, pursned, as it was, by the wary and bold Forrest, for the deception served to keep up the courage of the men and secure good order, and twice afterwards, during the retreat of one hundred and fifty miles, the fate of the whole command depended on the Seventh Indiana cavalry, under General Shanks. The forces were in three brigades.
On the 22d of December, General Shanks was with the rear regiment of the center brigade. Near Okolona, Mississippi, the rear brigade gave way, under fire of Forrest's advance, leaving its artillery, and, stampeding, dashed past Shanks' regiment in the wildest confusion. He held his men in good order and at once, withont command from his superiors, formed line of battle and attacked the rebel advance and held it, in unequal contest against seven thousand cavalry, with less than six hundred men, without artillery, and protected his front and flanks in the face of these odds for over four miles, holding his command in good order til he reached the lines formed by General Grierson to check Forrest.
During this fighting in retreat, General Grierson sent orders to General Shanks the third time to fall back more rapidly than he had been retiring, and the latter, withont looking at the staff officer, said, " Tell General Grier- son I have a wolf by the ears." Soon after the Seventh Cavalry had passed the lines formed by General Grierson to arrest Forrest's advance, they again broke, and Forrest charged with wild yells.
Generals Smith and Grierson then asked General Shanks if he would charge the enemy to check his advance. He answered that he would, and at once put four hundred men in line and charged full into the rebel ranks, recovering the brigade battery that had been abandoned by its support, but leaving on the field, in killed, wounded and prisoners, sixty out of the four hundred that made the charge.
The total loss of the regiment that day was eighty-four men. 'General Forrest did not pursue in force any further. General Shanks was ordered to the Hatchie river to save the bridge, which he reached the next evening, in time to protect it from a rebel detachment that was in sight, moving for the same point, to destroy it or to guard its passage against the Union troops, and thus cnt off our retreat. General Grierson complimented General Shanks on his gallant charge, saying. "It was a splendid charge. I did not expect to see you come out of it, but it was a necessity."
General Forrest, on meeting General Shanks after the rebellion, speaking of the charge, said to him : "That was a sad day to me. My brother Jeffrey, my chief of staff, fell there. Your charge was a most daring one, and I almost pitied your comunand as it came charging into our fire." General Shanks bad two horses shot under him, and had the marks of four bullet-holes in his
clothes aud on his person. The retreat was successfully accomplished, and throughout its entire progress, it is hnt simple justice to say that General Shanks exhibited the bravery and skill of a veteran.
General Shanks moved with a brigade of cavalry from Memphis, by way of Tippa, Mississippi, to meet the forces under General Forrest, at the head- waters of the Tallahatchie river, Imt the latter having fallen back on the advance of the former, General Shanks returned with his command to Memphis.
On the 4th of July, 1864, General Shanks was sent with a cavalry force from Memphis to Vicksburg, and thence to cross the State of Mississippi to Macon, Georgia, there to destroy the railroad bridges to prevent the rebel General Adams from joining his forces with those of Forrest, then marching against General A. J. Smith. at Tupelo.
He did not reach Macon, but meeting General Slocumn at Big Black river, where the latter had arrived from Jackson, Mississippi, with their joint forces, a successful attack was made on Adams, near Port Gibson, Mississippi, who was driven back and his junction with Forrest prevented. General Shanks, now in the department of General Slocm, wished to take fifty picked men and execute the order previously received, by a march of two bundred miles across the State of Mississippi to Macon, and when General Slocum denied the request, on the ground that the country was full of the enemy, thus rendering the journey dangerous, if not impossible, the former replied : " I came to do that work ; General Smith will expect this order executed; I will be in the line of my duty;" but he cheerfully oheyed the command of his superior.
In February, 1865, General Shanks was sent from Memphis dowu the Missis- sippi with a cavalry force to Gaines' Landing, and reached the Washita, in Louisiana, only to find that the rebels had crossed that river and fled. He returned, barely escaping by a few hours the rise in the Mississippi, the over- flow of which placed the entire country for twenty miles under water. On this expedition he burned a large amount of cotton belonging to rebels, which was, after the war, under the treaty of Washington, claimed by British sub- jects, and for the destruction of which. by General Shanks, three millions of dollars was demanded.
The General made answer to the commission and submitted the proof that the cotton belonged to the rebel so-called goverment, and the claim was not allowed.
He never seized and appropriated cotton owned by the confederacy; he always burned it, thus preventing any chance of fraud or speculation.
After the fall of Richmond, General Shanks was sent with a small command through northern Mississippi to make examination and report of the condition and temper of the people of both races, a service executed to the satisfaction of the anthority under which he acted.
Such is an imperfect sketch of the life and public services of a man who is a type of the frontiersman, a true republican, whose education and training were acquired more in action and converse with things and his fellow-man than in schools. No one acquainted with the General will, or does, question his unsullied integrity, bis ardent patriotism, his unselfish devotion to human rights, in their fullest significance, withont distinction of race, color, sex, or nationality,
Religious observance of truth, unselfish public spirit, warm advocacy of whatever he believes condusive to the best interests of mankind, righteous hatred of oppression, rigid adherence to houesty in all his dealings with his fellow-men, intense sympathy with the wronged of all races, wherever located, a love of his native country, tempered with due regard for the equal rights of humanity in all nations, a loathing contempt for hypocrisy, a cordial enmity . to dishonesty and double-dealing, and abhorrence of indirection, are his leading characteristics. The sentiment of the poet Terreuce, in his "Self-tormentor,' is not inappropriate as applied to General Shanks: Nil humani mihi alienum puto-as nothing that affects the interests of humanity is a matter of indif- ference to him.
His library, in nuinber and varicty of standard and miscellaneous books on all subjects, in addition to his supply of works on law, and his cabinet of valnable minerals and curiosities. all collected by himself and family, are perhaps not excelled by those of any other private individual in the State. He is the antipode of a demagogue, never courts popularity for its own sake, challenges the good will of all honest men in the conscientious discharge of his whole duty, and consequently there is a conspicuous absence among his friends of those who "bend the pliant hinges of the knee that thrift may follow fawning," and whose personal attachments are determined by the low standard of venality, and hence also he is without the support of rings of commercial politicians, who delight in reflected greatness, court more pliant leaders, and admire great men with questionable records.
The General's religious creed is brief, comprehensive and practical, in close harmony with the sentiment of the poet :
"For modes of faith let zealons bigots fight, HE can't be wrong, whose life is in the right."
He places little valne on rapidly vanishing theological dogmas and contro- versies, as not only harren of good, but often productive of great harm, usurping the place of genuine religion.
He holds that the only road to future happiness leads hy the doors of our neighbors, and that be, who, beiug of mature judgment, does not travel his heavenward journey in the course indicated, will most likely not reach the coveted haven.
He is of opinion that no repentance is real that does not include as full restitution as possible to the offended ; that our sins of omission as well as commission are chiefly of our own make, no more, no less; that Adam of his own volition committed his trespasses, and we ours ; that the real merit and redeeming virtue of the atoneinent of Jesus Christ cousist in our close and honest imitation of the life and lessons he has placed before us, and that the practical value of Christianity lies in the constant application of its plain teachings in all the relations of life. We can not wrong God. We may, and very often do, wrong ourselves and our neiglibor, by the violation of the laws of nature :
" Nature, another name for an effect, Whose cause is God."
Every truth agrees with every other truth, but not with falsehood, or error.
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