USA > Indiana > The soldier of Indiana in the war for the union, Vol. I > Part 25
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And, Pompey, while old Massa's waiting For death's last dispatch to come, If that exiled starry banner Should come proudly sailing home, You shall greet it, slave no longer -- Voice and hand shall both be free That shout and point to Union colors, On the Waves of Tennessee."
J.g. Reynoldy MATLAN MGOFA J. REYNOLDS
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GOD AND UNION !
Silently the tears were rolling Down the poor old dusky face, As Pompey stood behind his master, In his long accustomed place, With his dark-hued hand uplifted Shading eyes he bends to see, Where the woodland boldly jutting Turns aside the Tennessee.
Ha! above the foliage yonder, Something flutters wild and free, "Massa ! Massa! Hallelujah ! The flag's come back to Tennessee!"
"Pompey, hold me on your shoulder, Help me stand on foot once more, That I may salute the colors As they pass my cabin door. Here's the paper signed that frees you, Give a freeman's shout with me- "God and Union!' be our watchword Evermore in Tennessee."
Then the trembling voice grew fainter And the limbs refused to stand; One prayer to Jesus-and the soldier Glided to that better land. When the flag went down the river Man and master both were free, While the ring-dove's note was mingled With the rippling Tennessee.
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
CHAPTER XXV.
FORT DONELSON.
"Pain is the deepest thing we have in our nature, and union through pain has always seemed more real and holy than any other .- Hallam.
FORT Donelson is situated on a bend of the Cumberland river, where a bluff rises to the height of seventy or a hundred feet, with an irregular top of about a hundred acres. It com- mands the river, and is protected from the somewhat higher hills in the rear by their peculiar inclination, the heavy timber and thick underbrush which clothes them, and by abrupt ravines and gullies which cut the ridges in every direction. The main ravine almost encircles the bluff, and with its steep, wooded sides forms an excellent barrier to the advance of an enemy. About the middle of January, General Pillow was placed in command, and under his superintendence the forti- fications were completed. Two batteries, near the water's edge, protected the northeast side of the fort, and were them- selves protected by strong breast-works. Atirregularintervals breast-works, or field-works as they were called, formed a line which stretched nearly two miles north, west and south along the edge of the bluff. A trench for riflemen, distant from the fort about a mile, extended from a deep creek directly east of Dover, a little town in which commissary stores were kept, almost to the river, some distance below the water batteries, and formed the outer line of intrenchments, except where timber and brush were felled, making an almost impassable abatis from a quarter to a half mile wide, to guard some important point of approach to the rifle-pits. The rifle-pits were formed by logs piled one above another, with a space five or six inches wide between the upper log and the second one for the riflemen lying in the trench to fire through. The dirt thrown from the trench on the inside of this log fence was
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GARRISON OF DONELSON.
piled close against the outside. The fortifications consisted of three distinct parts, the forts and water batteries, the line of field-works, and the line of rifle-pits outside of the field- works.
Two roads leading from Dover, one southeast to Clarks- ville and Nashville, the other west to Fort Henry, were com- manded by artillery to the extent of one, two and three miles. The Cumberland at Fort Donelson is narrower than the Tennessee at Fort Henry, and winds amid wooded hills and banks covered with noble oaks. The country is broken into rough hills, which are like the short chopping waves of Lake Michigan. It is almost entirely uncultivated, and has a lonely, deserted aspect, to which at the time of the siege a solitary log-cabin, with frightened inmates, who knew not whither to flee from the destruction coming upon them at noonday, added a human and most melancholy interest.
The garrison of Donelson consisted of more than twenty thousand men, being thirteen regiments of Tennessee troops, two Kentucky, six Mississippi, one Texas, two Alabama, and four Virginia regiments, with a brigade of cavalry and eight batteries of artillery. Forty-eight pieces of field artillery and seventeen heavy guns armed the fort. Two of the guns threw long bolts of iron, which weighed one hundred and twenty- eight pounds. The larger number were thirty-two pounders.
General Floyd arrived before daylight of February 13th, and took command. The subordinate Generals were Pillow, Buckner and Bushrod Johnson. Hanson, Heiman, Voorhies, Head and other officers who afterwards rose to distinction in the Confederate army, had commands in the fort.
Shortly after the surrender of Fort Henry, Commodore Foote returned with his fleet to Cairo to make some speedy repairs preparatory to ascending the Cumberland, and General Grant ordered all available troops in his district to join him on the Tennessee or before Fort Donelson.
The Fifty-Second Indiana, the Railroad Regiment, which was just completed by a union with the Fifty-Sixth, left Indianapolis immediately, and, proceeding by rail to Cairo and on steamers up the Ohio and Tennessee, joined General Grant on the 9th of the month. The Fifty-Second was better
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
equipped than almost any regiment which had hitherto left the State, each man being provided with an Enfield rifle, and the sergeants and musicians having side-arms. 'The eagle on the regimental flag bore in its beak a scroll on which was the inscription, " CLEAR THE TRACK." The men were generally railroad men, capable of laying a track, repairing a bridge, or mending an engine, and Colonel Smith had risen by degrees in railroademployments to the position of superintendent.
The Twenty-Fifth, which had been in the Benton barracks since it escorted the prisoners taken in the Warrensburg expe- dition to St. Louis, arrived at Fort Henry on the 11th.
On the morning of Wednesday, the 12th, General Grant began to move through the woods and over the hills towards Fort Donelson. His force was not large. It consisted of but fifteen thousand men, yet it stretched out nearly twelve miles. When the advance at sundown was preparing to bivouac in the open fields, two miles west of the Cumberland, the rear was just leaving the banks of the Tennessee. The road, though winding and hilly, was good, and with the easy toil of the march, and the prospect of another speedy victory, the troops were so light-hearted that again the expedition, in spite of cannon and bayonets, and an under-current of fore- boding, had the aspect of a pleasure excursion. And in the almost unbroken forest, as if nature were responding to the moods and movements of men, as she sometimes seems to do, there was also a sort of mingling of hilarity and gravity A few withered remnants of last year's foliagestill hung here and there to the boughs of oak and beech, dead leaves were thick on the ground, yet singing birds from the South were making themselves heard, and full brooks, whose voices had not been chained all winter, babbled in shade and sun.
The same gaity, half-checked and half-encouraged by approach to danger, prevailed among Commodore Foote's forces as they made their way up the Cumberland. "We passed the day," wrote a soldier, "laughing, chatting and watching the shifting scenery of the winding river. The dear 'Star Spangled' echoed along the banks. The men beat time and hurrahed as the notes died away. A pleasure excursion it seemed to all; and again and again some one would remark,
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LINE OF INVESTMENT.
* We may be on the brink of battle, yet it seems as though we were traveling for pleasure.' "
General Grant spent Wednesday afternoon in examining the region about him, and in arranging his troops into a line running north and south, and bending at both extremities towards the east, and the river. The first division, General McClernand's consisting almost entirely of Illinois troops, formed the right wing. The second division, General Smith's, containing regiments from nearly all the Western States, formed the left wing. The Fifty-Second Indiana was in Colonel Cook's brigade of Smith's division. The Twenty- Fifth Indiana was in Colonel Lauman's brigade of the same division. Some hot firing between pickets, and some random balls from guns whose position was hidden by woods, retarded arrangements, but with the close of day firing ceased, and the line was completed. The night passed undisturbed. The moon shone serenely, and the air was soft and mild.
On Thursday pleasant breezes from the southwest made the day milder and warmer than the preceding. No fairer weather could be desired for out-door life. It was now the middle of February, and winter had not yet in the whole season fairly shown his face, but he never leaves this latitude without at least one sharp reminder of his power. The day continued clear, but the wind gradually vecred round. The change was unnoticed. The all-absorbing object of interest was the artillery, which began to roar at break of day, and never ceased its clamor until the curtain of night was drawn.
Several batteries hidden behind a small redoubt west of Dover poured their fire on McClernand's right. In their face Colonel W. H. L. Wallace reconnoitered Dover and the Cum- berland. Moving down a hill, across a valley, up a wooded ridge, planting a battery in the road where the left of the enemy's lines rested behind earthworks, and keeping up a constant cannonade, he accomplished the task.
About noon Colonel Hayne, to the left of Colonel Wallace, made an unsuccessful assault upon a redoubt which was a little northwest of Dover. With three regiments he moved as steadily down a long slope, across a glen and up a hill in front of the enemy, as if on evening parade, rifle-pits, breast-
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
works and batteries, concealed so that he had not suspected their proximity, pouring forth a galling fire. After a fierce assault he was repulsed, but he returned with his lines un- broken, except where the dead and wounded had fallen from the ranks.
Further along the line of investment, Colonel Lauman at ten o'clock led the Twenty-Fifth Indiana and the Fourteenth Iowa toward the enemy, distant about a half mile from their encampment. The two regiments moved in line of battle to the top of a hill which had protected them from the right wing of the Confederates. Here the Fourteenth Iowa moved off to the right, a third regiment was ordered to fill the vacancy thus created in the line, and the Twenty-Fifth was directed to fix bayonets and drive the Rebels from their works. The timber was so thick that the entrenchments were visible only here and there, and no conception of their range or extent could be formed.
Colonel Veatch sent forward the flank companies, Captain Saltzman and Captain Rheinlander, to deploy as skirmishers, and the regiment moved down the hill. The skirmishers found the enemy's works extending far to the left, they advanced consequently to the left, and taking position on a hill, they protected the body of the regiment from the enemy's rifle-pits, and silenced a six-pounder field piece which was brought to bear on its flank.
When the Twenty-Fifth had crossed the ravine, and reached the base of the hill on which were the enemy's breastworks now in plain view, a terrible fire of musketry, grape and can- nister was poured into it, but it received no order to withdraw or to halt, and accordingly it climbed up the hillside, through and over brush and logs, against the enemy's fire. At last a six-pounder field piece and a twelve-pound howitzer were so destructive that Colonel Veatch gave the order to halt and lie down.
After remaining under fire two hours and fifteen minutes, with no opportunity to return it to advantage, Colonel Veatch asked and obtained permission to withdraw. In retiring the men were thrown into some confusion by their exposed posi- tion, but they rallied promptly at the foot of the hill, and
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NIGHT.
remained there until, at night, Colonel Lauman ordered the regiment back to the position it had occupied in the morning.
Early in the morning of Thursday the Fifty-Second Indiana supported a battery near the center of the line during several hours that it was engaged with the enemy's artillery. It was then ordered to the extreme left where, finding shot and shell uncomfortably warm, it fell back under the brow of a hill.
The day's fighting, although it had enabled General Grant to obtain possession of the series of hills which lie adjacent to the ravine next to the outer line of fortifications, and had given him a thorough acquaintance with the ground, had assured him that victory was not to be lightly gained. The Confederates had several thousand more troops than were in his army, and if they should sally out in force they would certainly have him at great advantage. Anxious for rein- forcements, for provisions and for the assistance of the gun- boats, he sent a courier three miles down the river to watch for the approach of the vessels, and also one to Fort Henry with an order to General Wallace, who had been left in com- mand of that position, to move immediately with two regi- ments to Fort Donelson.
To the troops night brought, if not the anxiety which weighed upon the mind of the General, no rest and no com- fort. The cannonading, which had been ceaseless and along the whole line through the day, was now stopped, but from rifle-pit, and tree, and stump and log the crack of the rifle and the whistle of the bullet were provoked by every visible object which bore resemblance to an enemy. Fires so inevitably attracted the attention of sharp-shooters that they were almost certain death, and they were ordered to be extinguished, or were forbidden to be kindled. A change in the weather was painfully perceptible. The soft southern breeze of the morn- ing was now a keen east wind. A drizzling, shivering rain began to fall, and turned gradually to sleet and snow. Crouched in the shelter of rocks or logs the men ate their hard pilot bread, with no meat, or none but raw pork, and no coffee. Many, in the movementsof the day, had lost their blankets, and all were without tents.
The hospitals were full, and there were still wounded lying
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
with the dead on the disputed line between the entrench- ments and the investing army. The snow fell on them, and the wintry wind wailed over them. In many years so wild and cold a night had not been known.
Friday morning fires were made, the water in the canteens was thawed, and life was renewed under more pleasant auspices, although the soldiers breakfasted as they had supped, on bread.
The Confederates were prepared to receive an onset more severe than that of Thursday, but General Grant waited for reinforcements, and employed himself in extending and per- fecting the line of investment. Sharp-shooters were actively engaged. Crawling up behind trees and stumps on hands and knees, sometimes dragging themselves along the ground, creeping, as if fascinated, closer and closer to the earthworks, they were on constant watch, firing whenever a slouched hat appeared above the parapet.
" Why don't you come out of your old fort?" shouted one lying close behind a stump.
" Why don't you come in?' answered a voice from the works.
" You're cowards! I dare you to come out!"
" You're cowards! I dare you to come in!"
Early in the morning the transports landed provisions and reinforcements of men and artillery three miles below the fort. Cutting a way through the woods the troops without loss of time opened communication with Grant.
About one o'clock General Wallace arrived with the Eighth Missouri and Eleventh Indiana. The two regiments imme- diately joined their division under General Smith, and Gen- eral Wallace proceeded to organize a third division, which, when formed, was placed on the cone of a high ridge, thickly wooded to the front and rear, between Smith and McClernand, near General Grant's headquarters on the Fort Henry road. It consisted of three brigades. The first, under Colonel Cruft, had formed the right wing of General Buell's army at Cal- houn, and had just arrived on the ground. The Thirty-First and Forty-Fourth Indiana, the Seventeenth and Twenty-Fifth Kentucky were in Cruft's brigade. The second brigade was
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ATTACK OF THE GUNBOATS.
composed of three Illinois regiments, and was under the command of Colonel Thayer of the third brigade, which con- sisted of one Nebraska and three Ohio regiments.
At three o'clock in the afternoon the long looked for gun- boats steamed slowly up towards the fortifications, arranged as they were in the movement on Fort Henry, the iron-plated boats in advance, the Tyler, Lexington and Conestoga in reserve. The fort was above the range of the guns, and Com- modore Foote directed his attention to the water-batteries, with the intention of silencing them and moving up the river to a position which would enable him to pour broadsides into the fort.
The fort and water-batteries opened fire. The boats answered by pouring shells into the lower works. The firing was deliberate and accurate on both sides, but while the boats moved steadily onward, balls falling harmless from their bows, the embankments were cut and torn, and the Rebels fled in haste from the lower battery and trenches to the entrench- ments above them. The vessels approached within five hun- dred yards of the batteries, a few minutes more and they would be abreast, the circle of fire would be almost complete the batteries would be silenced, and every part of the fortifi- cations would be open to merciless broadsides. But at the bend of the river the sides of the boats were exposed, while only their bow guns could be used in reply, and they were so near that not a Confederate shot failed of its mark.
A solid shot cut the rudder-chains of the Carondelet, another splintered the helm of the Pittsburg. Both vessels became unmanageable, and floated with the current. Sixty shots struck the St. Louis, some passing through from stem to stern. On she moved quivering, but stout and true as the heart of the old Commodore, until the sixty-first crashed through her steering apparatus, killed the pilot and wounded the commander of the fleet. She shuddered, faltered, slowly yielded to the stream and drifted down. The signal for retiring was hoisted, and the whole fleet retreated.
At this spectacle the Confederates, who were running from their trenches and deserting their guns to escape the rain of
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
fire from the boats, returned, to their places, and worked their guns with renewed vigor.
The failure of the naval attack determined General Grant to entrench his army and wait for the gunboats to be repaired.
Friday evening a council of war was held in the Confed- erate headquarters at Dover. General Floyd was under the impression that heavy reinforcements to Grant's army were arriving day and night, and that it now numbered over eighty thousand. He represented that the enemy would not again give battle in the trenches, and that, with the lines about them drawn closer and closer, with the river, in spite of the gallant fight of the day under the control of iron-clad steamers, and all communication cut off, with every part of the fort open to fire, it would be impossible to hold out any length of time. He proposed to dislodge General McClernand, gain the open country beyond the Federal lines, and effect an escape to Nashville. His suggestions were approved, and it was deter- mined at an early hour on the following morning to make a desperate assault. To General Pillow was assigned the duty of opening the attack; to General Buckner the no less arduous task of keeping General Wallace, in the centre of the Federal line, from moving and of assaulting him when General McCler- nand's division should be rolled over against him by General Pillow's forces.
The night was cold. Snow fell in large flakes on soldiers sleeping on their arms, on sleepless sharp-shooters cowering in rifle-pits or in the woods, and on the wounded and dead who still lay between the lines of the contending armies. After midnight the snow ceased, and a biting wind rose.
Saturday morning, before day had well dawned, loud and shrill sounded the bugle-call to arms in McClernand's division. The Confederates were pouring along the Clarksville road, General Bushrod Johnson leading a column of twelve thousand men, with thirty pieces of artillery, the half of General Pil- low's division, Pillow following with the other half. The Federal soldiers sprang from their snowy beds, snatched their guns and formed swiftly in line of battle, McArthur on the right, Oglesby in the center, and Colonel Wallace on the left, with batteries on the flanks of each brigade, and stood
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PILLOW SUCCESSFUL.
so like a wall built up to breast a rising flood, that the Con- federate infantry was thrown into embarrassment. With difficulty General Pillow arranged it in position for action. A troop of Confederate cavalry, however, successfully gained Mc Arthur's rear, and made a fierce assault. A mutual repulse ensued, and General Pillow took immediate advantage of the movement forced upon McArthur, to thrust a brigade in the rear of Oglesby, who then was also obliged to fall back.
Colonel Wallace held his ground, although he faced about from the northeast to the south. At each attempt the Rebels made to mount a ridge in his new front he poured upon them so effective a musketry and artillery fire that, although they repeatedly returned to the charge, they could not cross the crest, and met with no success until they worked their way through a ravine, and pushing towards the west came out on Colonel Wallace's right. It was now plain to General McClernand that he was contending with overwhelming num- bers and on the brink of destruction. He dispatched a courier to the division commander on his left requesting immediate aid.
Under the orders of General Grant, Wallace was not at liberty to move. He was directed to hold his position, and be on his guard lest a sally from the fort should break the Federal center. He could respond to General McClernand's call only by dispatching a courier in all haste to General Grant. The Commander-in-Chief was not in his quarters, but was on the St. Louis in conference with the wounded Commodore. The courier stayed not, but spurred his horse over the uneven ground to the river. It was miles away, and the battle raged on.
Meantime another and still more urgent demand for rein- forcements reached General Wallace. There could be no question as to duty, and Wallace, who, at the first Rebel roar, had formed his division in line of battle, with no further hes- itation assumed the responsibility a timid or a machine-like man would have shifted from his shoulders, and sent Colonel Cruft with his brigade to report to General McClernand. At half past eight the brigade moved rapidly along the Dover and Fort Henry road in a column of companies, the Twenty-
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
Fifth Kentucky in advance, followed by the Thirty-First Indiana, Seventeenth Kentucky and Forty-Fourth Indiana. A third messenger from McClernand met them, and urged them to hasten forward. The troops shouted in reply, and quickened their steps to a run. Down in a ravine where flows a clear, swift brook, Colonel Cruft's guide, who was either false or stupid, probably false, led the brigade astray. In a thick wood Cruft found himself suddenly close to the enemy's entrenchments. His two advance regiments, before they had time to form, became engaged with a superior force, which was endeavoring to gain a ravine in the rear of one of McClernand's batteries. They formed a line of battle under continued volleys of the enemy's musketry. The Seventeenth Kentucky and Forty-Fourth Indiana came up in order, but were directed by an Illinois officer to refrain from firing until the right wing of an Illinois regiment straggling between them and the enemy succeeded in getting off the field. Fifteen minutes or more the Forty-Fourth and Seventeenth stood passive under fire.
While they had ammunition the Illinois troops either bravely held their ground or retreated in order. Now they were out of ammunition, and hard pressed by the enemy, confusion was but too manifest. Some fled outright, in undisguised and unrestrained terror, casting away guns and cartridge-boxes. Others full as anxious to secure their own safety were still, even in tumult and terror, desirous of pre- serving appearances, and crowded round the wounded, offi- ciously offering to carry them off the field. More than one sufferer had a bearer for every limb. There were even officers who scarcely knew what they were doing. One galloped far down the road, beyond General Wallace's position, crying, " We are cut to pieces! The day is lost!" Two officers from regiments then on the right of Colonel Cruft, rode up to the Twenty-Fifth Kentucky, and, without consulting the Colonel, ordered it forward to the enemy's line. The Twenty-Fifth obeyed, and was firing from its new position when another officer ordered it to cease. Some of the retiring troops broke through Cruft's line, cutting the Twenty-Fifth Kentucky in two, and separating Lieutenant-Colonel Osborn, who was in
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