USA > Indiana > The soldier of Indiana in the war for the union, Vol. I > Part 26
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ON THE HONOR OF PILLOW.
command of the Thirty-First Indiana, so widely from his regiment that he was not able to rejoin it during the morning. The command then devolved upon the Major, and though he was little more than twenty years old, no officer bore himself more gallantly on that bloody field.
The withdrawal of all McClernand's division left Cruft half a mile to the right and in advance-of the line of invest- ment. After a varied struggle, charging and receiving charges, he fell back nearer support.
Meanwhile General Wallace, chafing under the restraint of orders given on the previous day, and for different circum- stances, waited in vain for a response to his message. Con- vinced, as the tide of McClernand's troops rolled over on him, that the present was the supreme moment of the battle, he at last brought his third brigade forward and placed it between the retreating and the pursuing forces. The firing had ceased. The Confederates were not in sight; but concealed by the hills and hollows, and the tawny leaves on the thick undergrowth of oak, precisely the color of the Rebel dress, they covered the conquered ground, and only waited word of command to continue the fight and pursuit. While they waited they robbed the dead and wounded, and General Pil- low wrote a dispatch to be telegraphed to Nashville, “On the honor of a soldier the day is ours!"
Their success was so great that General Floyd determined instead of pursuing the road to Nashville, to complete the conquest of the Federal army. He ordered the advance to be resumed. Flushed with victory, the Confederates swept rapidly along the road to the brow of the hill opposite the position of Wallace. With amazement they saw a new line of battle formed at a right angle with the old one, and extend- ing along the crest of the hill above the little brook. Two guns were in the road and two on each side. They could see no further, but in the woods west of Wallace's line were Cruft, Oglesby, Mc Arthur and Colonel Wallace, reform- ing their brigades, and refilling their cartridge-boxes, or resting preparatory to moving again into action, while McClernand's artillery was ready to move back to the field.
Fresh foes on a field so nearly won only added to the des-
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
perate determination of the Confederates. They descended, crossed the brook and began to go up in the face of the guns before Wallace gave orders to fire. In spite of the deadly fire they pushed on, through shrubs and trees, and up the road, returning volley for volley, until half the ascent was gained. The officers could force the men no further. They broke and fled.
General Buckner had not performed his role in the plan of the preceding evening, but he had joined Pillow in the assault on Wallace, and without having had a part in the success of the morning, he now bore a full share of the defeat. Gloomily the Confederate officers accompanied their hurrying troops back to the wooded, rocky steep from which Pillow had so proudly swept McClernand. Nashville, the open country, escape were as far off as ever.
General Grant directed Wallace to follow them up and assault them on their chosen ground, at the same time he sent to his aid from General Smith's division, the Eighth Missouri and the Eleventh Indiana. Forming his column of attack of the Eighth Missouri, Colonel Smith, of the Eleventh Indiana, Colonel McGinnis, and of Cruft's tired but tried brigade, with two Ohio regiments in reserve, but well advanced on the left flank, Wallace, with that glow which comes from the heart of valor, spoke to his men of the desperate nature of the enterprise in which they were moving. They must cross an open space of several hundred feet, and mount a steep cannon-crowned hill, over ledges of rock and through dense thickets. The voice of the speaker, the glory of the danger inspired the men. "Forward! Forward!" they shouted with that exulting courage which scorns thought of self.
The Eighth Missouri moved in advance, the Eleventh Indiana generously yielding precedence to its friendly rival. Five companies of the Thirty-First, a fraction of Cruft's bri- gade, were on the extreme left. Cruft with the rest moved towards the left flank of the enemy to attack his rear. Creep- ing, running, jumping, hiding, the skirmishers of the Eighth fought from tree to tree every step of the way, face to face with the enemy's sharp-shooters. When the advanced regi-
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STORMING THE ENTRENCHMENTS.
ments were half way up the hill a line of fire ran along the top. The Eighth and Eleventh threw themselves flat on the ground, and the shot swept over them. Up they sprang, returned the volley, and climbed again until another line of light gave them warning. Falling and rising as the Rebels fired or loaded, they gained the summit almost without the loss of a man. The other regiments suffered more. A sharp and des- perate contest took place on the right. Read and Shackleford, McHenry and the youthful Arn, Smith and McGinnis and the cool Cruft pressing on in the face of Pillow and Buckner, Johnson and Head, drove them within their entrenchments. The field, seven hours in possession of the enemy, wasregained, and the ground almost to the rifle-pits won. Loud and long cheering echoed among the hills, and answered like cheering which came from the other end of the line.
Shortly before General Wallace assaulted the Rebel posi- tion on the right, General Grant ordered General Smith's division, which had as yet taken no part in the actions of the day, to storm the works near the northwest angle of the fort. They were exceedingly strong. The declivity, steep and dif- cult to climb when obstructed only by its natural ledges of rock, now closely covered with sharp stakes and felled trees, whose branches were interlocked, presented a fearful barrier. Above the abatis, in the trenches, were three regiments. Above and beyond the rifle-pits were three more regiments and six pieces of field artillery, protected by field-works. The abatis, the two lines of entrenchments, the black mouths of the cannon with the western sun playing upon them, were plain enough to the troops forming in a meadow west of the hill, but no Confederate soldiers were visible. Crouched close behind their walls of wood and earth, they poised their loaded rifles, and watched and waited.
Smith divided his cannon, which was under the command of Major Cavender, and placed one portion on the left and rear, the other on the right and rearof the point to be attacked. He directed Cook's brigade, with the exception of the Fifty- Second Indiana regiment, which he joined to Lauman's brigade, to move to the left and to make an attack under the protection of the artillery in its rear. He ordered Lauman's
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
brigade to move straight upon the works, under cover of a furious cannonade, and during the diversion effected by Cook. He commanded the men not to fire a gun-to take the first line of entrenchments with the bayonet alone.
Cook moved to his attack. Cavender, from right and left, poured in his fire. Lauman's line, the Second Iowa, the Fifty- Second and Twenty-Fifth Indiana, the Seventh and Four- teenth Iowa, began to march, with skirmishers on each side. In front rode General Smith, his snowy hair shining in the golden rays of the setting sun. By his side marched a color- bearer, waving the Stars and Stripes. Long lines of bayonets glittered behind the General and the colors; dark masses of artillery frowned before them. Steadily, gaily they moved, while from the outer and from the inner entrenchments Rebel cannon and Rebel muskets poured a fearful fire down. In the ranks hearts beat wildly and footsteps faltered. "Steady! Steady!" said the officers on the right, on the left and in the rear, and steadily the soldiers marched. But it was the grand old man and the brave old banner moving on in front which calmed the wild heart and strengthened the failing foot.
In fire and smoke the column reached the base of the hill. The long line stretched out like an opening fan. The men climbed the steep, slippery with snow and rotting leaves. They scrambled through and over the abatis. They neared the outer wall. They sprang upon it. They cleared the trenches with their bayonets. They planted their banners. They dragged up the cannon. And it was then, from the inside of the entrenchments, that their shouts swept up the river, and over the hills to Wallace's conquering troops.
Days the men seemed to have lived while they climbed the abatis and scaled the parapet in the face of death. Now they sank wearily down in the snow, without supper, and slept without fire, and with cannon roaring above them. Nearly four hundred fell in the assault on the northwest angle of the fort.
General Grant arranged his plans for an early assault on the succeeding day. And the Confederate officers within the doomed fortifications met in conference to arrange their plans.
309
A GORDIAN KNOT.
Floyd, Pillow and Buckner were the chief spokesmen, although nearly all the brigade and regimental commanders were present. Floyd was a thick, stout man, and had the coarse, wicked look of a negro overseer. Pillow was also thickset, but affable and gentlemanly in manner, and appear- ance like Buckner. They were all now now in bad humor, and opened the meeting with crimination and recrimination, in which they had no time to indulge. Leaving dispute, at length, General Floyd proceeded to business. "We can send for steamboats," he said, "and escape to-morrow night. We can hold the place a day yet."
"I cannot hold my position one half hour," replied Buck- ner. "The enemy can assault me in reverse, or under shelter of an intervening ridge attack the water-batteries. Four days and nights of continued conflict, without fire, without sleep, without rest of any kind, without adequate food or clothes, have exhausted my men. I cannot hold out one half hour," he repeated.
A Mississippi officer proposed an assault like that of the morning.
"Three-fourths would fall," said Buckner.
" Let three-fourths fall, one-fourth would escape," said Pillow and Floyd together. But Buckner's milder temper carried the meeting.
Then the fort must surrender. "The fort may surrender, but I will not!" declared Floyd.
"Nor I," echoed Pillow.
What could they do? How surrender and not surrender? How save their lives, yet escape falling into the hands of a contemptuous foe? Floyd knew well that no man in the Confederacy occupied so undesirable a place in Northern esti- mation as himself. By that law which places the moral sublime, either of good or of base, in juxtaposition with the ridiculous, he knew that he was the favorite and peculiar object of Northern scorn; that statesmen and hod-carrier looked with the same eyes upon the man who used the nation's trust to rob the nation's treasury. He was convinced that his lace and feathers and stars in Northern eyes were.
21
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
but the conceited bedizening of a thief, and as he was not devoid of sensibility, nothing would induce him to surrender.
The knot, too tight to untie, too involved to untangle, like a greater warrior, he cut.
"General Pillow, to you I as superior officer turn over the command of this fort."
Not often does a vivacious, ambitious, shallow man refuse command of responsibility, but under present circumstances no position within Fort Donelson had charms for General Pillow, and without hesitation he turned to the surprised and indignant Buckner, "General Buckner, it is my firm resolve never to surrender, and to you I turn over the command."
" Upon what authority or principles the senior Generals acted in this affair is not known," observed Jefferson Davis in the message with which he accompanied the reports of the Fort Donelson officers to the Confederate House of Representatives.
Midnight beheld Floyd and Pillow with several thousand men stealing up the river. Daylight saw the white flag waving over Fort Donelson.
At an early hour a letter from General Buckner proposing the appointment of commissioners to settle terms of capitu- lation was sent to General Grant. The latter replied, "No terms other than an unconditional surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works."
General Buckner informed Grant that his language was ungenerous and unchivalrous, and having thus eased his mind, proceeded to do what he had resolved in the council of war the night before.
After the business of the surrender was arranged, General Grant, who was on board a steamer, moved up the river to the landing at Dover. Gunboats and transports, more than fifty in number, followed him.
General Smith entered after General Grant, leading his division from the outer entrenchments, where he had lain since his assault upon them, to the field-works, from which a spas- modic artillery fire had ceased to pour upon him only a few hours before. Here he paused to allow his regiments to enter the inner circle of the fortifications in the order in which they had scaled the outer walls.
311
VICTORY.
The Second Iowa, foremost in the column of regiments, had been outstripped on the hill or on the wall by Captain Rheinlander's company of the Twenty-Fifth Indiana, which had moved in skirmish line to the right of the column, while the other nine companies had spread out to the left. Captain Rheinlander had no flag, and the Iowa men were the first to set up a banner. As Colonel Veatch with his nine com- panies had come through the breach close behind the Second Iowa, there could be no doubt that if he had not the first, he had the second claim to honor, and the just old General would allow no regiment but the Second Iowa to enter before the Twenty-Fifth, although he had to wait a half hour for it, in the midst of an excitement which made half hours seem half days.
The first Federal officer of high rank in Fort Donelson was General Wallace. Having been the first to see the flag of surrender, he had entered immediately, and breakfasted with General Buckner, who was an old acquantance.
Infantry, cavalry and artillery were all the morning winding up the hills. Multitudes of banners waved. Trumpet and drum, fife and bugle filled the air with their clangor. Inces- sant shouts rose joyously above the crashing music. Artil- lery boomed, heavy and solemn, as if saying, triumph is but the crown of power.
Nature took up the tune of joy which ran through the hearts of the army, and did all that nature in winter could do to glorify the victory. The wind, fitful and sharp during the days and nights of battle, swept round to the south and sank to a soft, warm breeze. The clouds fled away, and the sun shone in the unspotted blue.
General Grant issued a congratulatory order, from which the following paragraphs are extracted:
" For four successive nights, without shelter during the most inclement weather known in this latitude, they faced the enemy in large force, in a position chosen by himself. Though strongly fortified by nature, all the additional safe- guards suggested by science were added.
" Without a murmur this was borne, prepared at all times to receive an attack, and with continuous skirmishing by day,
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
resulting ultimately in forcing the enemy to surrender without conditions.
"The victory achieved is not only great in the effect it will have in breaking down rebellion, but has secured the greatest number of prisoners of war ever taken in any battle on this continent.
"Fort Donelson will hereafter be marked in capitals on the map of our united country, and the men who fought the battle will live in the memory of a grateful people."
Other officers congratulated the troops in words as warm and noble. The finest words, however, were feeble. Only the banner, the trumpet and the huzza could in any wise express the superb joy of success.
But there was a dark background to the picture which Fort Donelson presented on Sunday, the 16th of February- the wounded and the dead and the prisoners.
The snow around the fort was stained with crimson. The clear little brook, across which the Confederates pursued McClernand, and back from which they were hurled by Wal- lace, ran with mingled blood and water. On the steep won . by the Eleventh, Thirty-First and Forty-Fourth, with the Missouri and Kentucky regiments; on the height where the Twenty-Fifth made its first assault, and where gallant Cap- tain Laird, bleeding and helpless, had cheered his men to the combat; on the slope old General Smith had mounted with his cap on his sword, were mangled men, dead horses and splintered trees. Gory garments were scattered through the woods. Dead bodies were found frozen fast to the earth.
There is no doubt that many wounded died during the days and nights the cruel necessity of war compelled them to lie untended and moaning, scattered along the belt five miles in extent on which the fighting took place.
Our surgeons were not only men of ability, but many of them were endowed with a humanity which impelled them to expose their own lives where they could not relieve suffer- ing without the exposure. On Saturday the hospital in which Dr. Fry and Dr. Thompson were at work was attacked, a volley of musketry passed through it, and for a little time they supposed themselves prisoners.
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THE BACKGROUND.
'Sunday, the day of triumph, and music and gaiety to other officers, was to them a day of almost unmitigated horror. Everywhere was the woful spectacle of robust men mangled and bleeding, and deprived forever of their strength and comeliness. They could and did say, "Bear it; bear it. It is for your country."
"Yes," said one, not yet twenty years old, " and I am proud to die for my country. No man could do more. But, oh my mother!"
"And oh the hope I had of life!" said another, who was buried the day he was nineteen.
About fifteen hundred of the Federal soldiers were killed, wounded and missing. After the dead were collected the troops marched past them, and each company claimed and buried its own.
Wednesday,steamers came up the river, bringing Governor Morton and a large party of citizens from Indiana, with hos- pital stores for the wounded. Many of this party were from Evansville, but the larger number were from Indianapolis, and had left Sunday evening as soon as they heard of the battle. The authorities at Cairo had obliged them to go to the hospitals at Mound City and attend to the wounded there, who were but three or four in number, and had thus delayed their arrival at Fort Donelson. They found that the army surgeons had made very great exertions, and had accomplished an almost incredible amount of labor.
Nearly fifteen thousand Rebel soldiers surrendered with the fort. When the guns were grounded, it was found that, beside the usual arms, the Mississippians carried huge bowie knives, which seemed to have been made by ordinary black- smiths. These weapons had an exceedingly savage appear- ance, but were probably guiltless of blood, except such as was shed in private brawls.
Many of the Rebel officers were insolent and defiant. One of them shot the Major of an Illinois regiment in the back. General Grant immediately issued orders for disarming them all.
In towering indignation Buckner rushed into Grant's presence, declaring such an act barbarous, inhuman, brutal
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
and at variance with rules of civilized warfare. Captain Rawlins, Assistant Adjutant General, mildly explained the occasion of the order. 6 General Grant added, “General Buckner, it was my intention not to say anything in relation to this matter, in order to spare your feelings, but as Captain Rawlins has thought proper to introduce the reasons, I will conclude them. You come here to complain of my acts with- out having any right to object to them. You do not remember that your surrender was unconditional. If we compare the acts of the different armies in this war, how will yours bear inspection? You have shot my officers in cold blood. As. I rode over the field I saw the dead of my army brutally insulted by your men, their clothing stripped off of them, and their bodies exposed without the slightest regard to decency. At Belmont my officers were crowded into cotton-pens with my brave soldiers, and then thrust into prison, while your officers were permitted to enjoy parole and to live at our hotels. Your men are given the same fare as my own, and your wounded receive the best medical attention. I have taken the precaution to disarm your officers and men because necessity compelled me to protect my own from assassina- tion."
General Grant's quiet exterior frequently deluded officers who were casually associated with him into the assumption that he was an ordinary man. In this interview, however, he proved his claim to more than ordinary power. Speaking in an even tone, looking with his warm, mild gray cye straight into the Confederate General's face, he abashed that unprin- cipled man, whose cheek had probably seldom beforeknown a tinge of shame. It is said that Buckner hung his head and left the apartment without reply.
Some of the Rebel officers behaved with dignity. One said, "I don't blame the Government for sending us North; I acknowledge that I am a Rebel, taken in arms, and it is fully justified in treating me accordingly."
When a Federal officer remarked that the people in the region of Henry and Donelson said that they voted for the Union twice, but the last time yielded to popular clamor or stayed away from the polls altogether, a Confederate officer
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HOOSIERS DON'T KNOW ANY BETTER.
replied, "True, sir, it's always so in these hilly countries. These stupid Hoosiers don't know any better. For genuine southern feeling you must go among gentlemen-rich people."
The prisoners were all extremely indignant because of the desertion of Floyd and Pillow; especially as it was reported that the former, after he was safe on the steamer by which he escaped, repeatedly shouted to the captain of the boat to "cut loose," without any consideration for the soldiers, who, frantic with rage and terror, were rushing along the river bank, and crowding into every part of the boat.
"I denounce Pillow as a coward, and I'll shoot him if I see him again," said an officer.
"Floyd always was a rascal!" was the unanimous voice.
"The thief is a coward by nature's law;
Who betrays the state to no one is true;
And the brave foe at Fort Donelson saw
Their light-fingered Floyd was light-footed too."
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THE SOLDIER OF INDIANA.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CONFEDERATE PRISONERS.
FALSTAFF .- If I be not ashamed of my soldiers I am a souced gurnet. My whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of com- panies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his sores, and such as indeed were never soldiers; but discarded unjust serving-men, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, and ostlers trade-fallen; the cankers of a calm world, and a long peace; you would think that I had a hundred and fifty tattered prodigals, lately come from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks. A mad fellow met me on the way, and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets, and pressed the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scare-crows. I'll not march through Coventry with them, that's flat. Nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs as if they had gyves on; for, indeed, I had most of them out of prison. There's but a shirt and a half in all my company, and the half shirt is two napkins tacked together, and thrown over the shoulders like a herald's coat without sleeves, and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen.
PRINCE HENRY .- Tell me, Jack, whose fellows are these that come after ? FALSTAFF .- Mine, Hal, mine.
PRINCE HENRY .- I did never see such pitiful rascals.
FALSTAFF .- Tut, tut; good enough; food for powder; food for powder,- King Henry IV.
Ar Cairo the prisoners delivered at Fort Donelson were divided, eight or nine thousand were sent to Chicago, and the remainder to the capital of Indiana. In the latter place curiosity to see them was so great that the Daily Journal took occasion to warn the citizens against any unseemly demon- strations of triumph. The warning was unnecessary, as it was not possible for loyal northern people to be ungenerous to the fallen and the unhappy, but it so faithfully represents the truly northern ability of uniting condemnation with pity, justice in judgement with charity in action, that a few pas- sages are here quoted:
" Probably no people on the earth ever had better cause to execrate an enemy than we have to execrate the Rebels, who, for the mere perpetuation of a sectional control of the gov-
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BUTTERNUTS.
ernment, have set the whole fabric in flames, and subjected us to the terrible torture and danger of bearing it while burn- ing and of extinguishing it. A more causeless, cowardly, unprovoked outrage was never committed ; it was accom- panied with such acts of defiant contempt of law, right and reason, such infinite scorn of us and all our claims on their loyalty and integrity, that no amount of detestation will ever equal the provocation. We cannot hate and despise enough the wretches who whipped Northern women, hanged North- ern men, stole Northern property, confiscated Northern debts, and turned to our injury the national prosperity which we had created for them. But these prisoners are not all or chiefly of this class. Their leaders, and, no doubt, many of themselves, are of it, but most were either deluded or forced into the war. For the sake of those who either honestly believe they were menaced with oppression by the Govern- ment, or have been compelled in spite of their convictions to join the Rebel army, we ought to spare the prisoners all exhi- bitions of triumph that would make us appear malignant in their eyes or little in our own."
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