USA > New Mexico > Men of our day; or, biographical sketches of patriots, orators, statemen, generals, reformers, financiers and merchants, now on the stage of action > Part 10
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49
.
4000 prisoners, 25,000 horses, mules, etc., and 15,000 refugees, black and white, set at liberty. After a rest of two days, Sher- man moved moderately forward, meeting, fighting, and defeating the enemy under Johnston, at Averysboro, on the 16th, and again, on the 19th, at Bentonville; finally, pressing them back so swiftly on Smithfield, on the 20th and 21st, that they lost
101
WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN
seven guns and over 2000 prisoners, while deserters poured in by hundreds. On the same day Schofield occupied Goldsboro, General Terry secured Cox's bridge, and successfully pon- tooned the Neuse river, and General Sherman issued a congratu- latory order to his troops, in which he says: " After a march of the most extraordinary character, nearly five hundred miles, over swamps and rivers, deemed impassable to others, at the most inclement season of the year, and drawing our chief sup- plies from a poor and wasted country, we reach our destination in good health and condition-you shall now have rest, and all the supplies that can be brought from the rich granaries and storehouses of our magnificent country, before again embarking on new and untried dangers." The entire Union losses in killed, wounded, and prisoners, on this sixty days' march from Savan- nah to Goldsboro, had been less than 2500 men. Leaving his men to recruit their energies, Sherman went to City Point, where, on the 27th of March, he had an interview with General Grant and the President, returning to his camp the next day.
His army was now only separated from Grant's by a distance of 150 miles, traversed by a railroad which could easily be put in order for immediate use ; and, between the two, as between the upper and the nether millstone, the enemy were to be crushed by a blow, which, as yet, neither army hastened to give.
On the 10th of April, Sherman's army, thoroughly rested and fully equipped, moved on Smithfield, which they entered on the following morning. Johnston, who commanded a large body of troops, retired across the Neuse, burning the bridge behind, and retreating by railroad. Sherman's men, struggling through roads so muddy that they were obliged to corduroy every foot of them, were cheered by the news of Lee's surrender, which met them en route, and leaving their trains, they pushed ahead with redoubled energy, to Raleigh, which they entered in the
102
MEN OF OUR DAY.
early morning of the 15th. Sherman now took measures to cut off Johnston's retreat, when the latter (knowing, what Sherman did not, that Salisbury had been captured by the Union General Stoneman on the 12th, thereby closing his own avenue of escape to the southward) made overtures for surrender. Interviews between the two generals, on the 17th and 18th, (at the latter of which General J. C. Breckinridge, then acting Secretary of War of the Confederacy, was present) resulted in the drawing up of a joint memorandum, to be submitted to the Presidents of the United States and of the Confederate Government, and if approved by them to be acted upon. The points of this memo- randum were briefly as follows: (1) the contending armies to remain in statu quo, hostilities not to be resumed until within forty-eight hours after due notice from either side; (2) the Confederate armies then in the field to disband, march to their respective State capitals, there to deposit their arms and public property, and each man to execute an agreement to cease from acts of war. The number of arms, etc., to be reported to the chief of ordnance at Washington, subject to the future ac- tion of the United States Congress, and, meanwhile, to be used only to maintain peace and order within the borders of the several States; (3) the recognition, by the Executive of the United States, of the several State governments, on their officers and legislatures taking the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States; and the legitimacy of any conflicting State governments to which the war may have given rise, to be submitted to the Supreme Court of the United States ; (4) the re-establishment of all Federal courts in the several States, with powers as defined by the Constitution and laws of Congress; (5) the guarantee, by the Executive, to the people of all the States, of their political rights and franchises, as well as personal and property rights, according to the Constitutions of the United
103
WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN.
States and the several States; (6) the people not to be dis- turbed by the United States Government, on account of the late war, so long as they lived in peace, obeyed their local laws, and abstained from acts of armed hostility ; (7) on the above condi- tions, a general amnesty. This agreement, which was evidently entered into by Sherman under the full conviction that slavery was dead and the rebellion totally crushed, was received at Washington, by the Cabinet, just at the moment that their hearts and the public mind were intensely agitated and confused by the recent atrocious assassination of President Lincoln, the attempt on Secretary Seward's life, and the other startling events of the day. To men in such a frame of mind, and when read by the light of surrounding circumstances, its terms seemed unpardonably liberal. Forgetting that his action coin- cided exactly with the published policy of the late President (in his permission [April 7th] to the Virginia legislature to meet and adopt such measures as should withdraw the State troops from the Confederate force); and forgetting, also, that Sherman, in his recent great march, had been completely isola- ted from the outside world, and was ignorant of any change of policy on the part of the new President-the Cabinet set. the seal of its disapproval upon the course which the gallant chief- tain had submitted to their consideration. Yet, it is worthy of note, that, as events have since turned, the relations of these States to the Union have been based upon the identical policy which Sherman's course then indicated. General Grant went, therefore, immediately to Raleigh, where he arrived on the 24th, and Sherman promptly notified the enemy of the termination of the armistice at the end of forty-eight hours. Johnston im- mediately signifed to Sherman his desire for a conference, which resulted, on the 26th, in the surrender of the Confederate army to General Sherman, on the terms awarded to General Lee
104
MEN OF OUR DAY.
30,000 soldiers, 15,000 muskets, 108 pieces of artillery were surrendered, and the war of the rebellion was virtually ended. On the 4th of May, the greater part of his army moved north ward to Richmond and Washington, where they were reviewed, May 24th, 1865, and about two thirds of them disbanded, the war having so nearly closed, as to render their further presence in the field unnecessary.
From June 27th, 1865, to August 11th, 1866, General Sherman held the command of the Military Division of the Mississippi (including Ohio, Missouri, and Arkansas), with headquarters at St. Louis; and, from the latter date, of the Military Division of Missouri, which command he now retains. He was also appointed a member of the Board to make recommendations for brevets to general officers, March 14th to 24th, 1866; and was sent on a special mission to Mexico, in November and Decem- ber, 1866. On the 25th of July, 1866, by vote of Congress, he was created LIEUTENANT-GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY, a deserved acknowledgment of his valor, skill, and patriotism. On the 19th of the same month, he received from Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, a compliment not unfitting one who, while wielding the sword, has displayed a singularly acute and com- prehensive understanding of the principles of civil and politi- cal law.
This great soldier is tall and slender in person, vigorous and enduring in action, and nervous in temperament, with manners somewhat brusque and austere, and a quick, rervous way of speaking. He is a great smoker, requires bu: little sleep, and is a close and somewhat abstracted thinker. As a writer, he expresses himself with remarkable terseness and force, often condensing a whole volume of military law in a single sentence. With an imperious will, which naturally brooks no control, he
105
WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN.
always recognizes, that " unhesitating obedience is the first duty of the soldier." He well merits the commendation bestowed upon him by the ablest'European military critics, " of being the most complete master of logistics, and of the management of the movable column, of modern times." He is one of the very A few men, of whom not a dozen are to be found in a century, who can handle with masterly skill, and without confusion, an army of a hundred thousand men or more. His soldiers idolize him, for they have ample evidence that their every want and comfort are looked after by the gruff chieftain, who is always willing to share their privations and their dangers. His patriot- ism is of the purest type, untouched, as yet, by the breath of slander, or the defiling slime of political strife.
VICE-ADMIRAL DAVID D. PORTER.
F courage and splendid fighting qualities are inherited, Admiral Porter should be, as he is, one of the best fight- ing men in the navy, for he is the youngest son of that old Viking, Commodore David Porter, who, in the war of 1812, was the terror of the British marine, and who, while, unlike Semmes of the Alabama, he never let slip an opportunity of engaging a war vessel of the enemy, even if she carried twice his armament, made worse havoc with their mercantile marine than Semmes did with ours. The career of the frigate Essex, and her untoward fate, made the old commodore a hero for the rest of his life. After the close of the war he served as a mem- ber of the board of Navy Commissioners from 1815 to 1823, but the longing for the sea was too strong for him to overcome, and an opportunity occurring for a cruise to destroy the pirates who were infesting the West Indies, he gladly took command, and served two years, when, having punished with some severity an insult offered by the authorities of one of the islands, he was called home, and a naval court martial having decided that he had transcended his authority, he was suspended from command for six months. He resigned soon after, and for the next four years was commander-in-chief of the naval forces of Mexico. Returning to the United States in 1829 he was appointed consul general to the Barbary powers, and thence transferred first as
106
107
VICE-ADMIRAL DAVID D. PORTER.
chargé and afterward as minister, to Constantinople, where he remained till his death in 1843.
His youngest son, DAVID D. PORTER, was born in Philadel- phia about 1814, and, while still a child, accompanied his father in his cruise after the pirates in 1823-25. We believe he was also with him in Mexico.
On the 2d of February, 1829, he received his warrant as mid- shipman, being appointed from Pennsylvania. He was ordered to the frigate Constellation, thirty-six guns, stationed in the Mediterranean, under Commodore Biddle and Captain Wads- worth.
In 1831, the Constellation was ordered home, and laid up in ordinary at Norfolk, and Porter was granted leave of absence, after which, in 1832, he was ordered back to the Mediterranean on the new flag-ship United States, a forty-four gun frigate, under Captain Nicholson, Commodore Patterson having charge of the squadron. On the 3d of July, 1835, he passed his ex- amination, and was recommended for early promotion. During the years 1836 to 1841, he was appointed on the Coast Survey and exploring expeditions, and stood on the list of passed mid- shipmen at the following numbers :- January 1, 1838, No. 111; January 1, 1839, No. 84; January 1, 1840, No. 61, and January 1, 1841, at No. 48.
On the 27th of February, 1841, he was commissioned a lieutenant, and ordered to the frigate Congress, a forty-four gun vessel-of-war. He then rejoined the Mediterranean squad- ron, and after a short time this vessel was ordered on the Brazilian station. He still retained his position on the same craft, and was on her more than four years; for his name is re- corded as one of her lieutenants on the rolls of the Navy Depart- ment for the years commencing January 1, 1842, 1843, 1844, and 1845. He had not risen much during these years; for on the
+
.
108
MEN OF OUR DAY.
first mentioned date his name stood at N., 267 on the list of lieutenants ; on the second at No. 258; on the third at No. 245, and on the last at No. 232. At the latter end of 1845 he was attached to the Observatory at Washington on special duty, which position he still held at the commencement and during a portion of 1846. He then stood No. 228 on the list. On January 1, 1847, after having performed some brilliant exploits in the Gulf of Mexico during the Mexican war, he is recorded as being in charge of the rendezvous at New Orleans, from which he was detached to again join the Coast Survey, on which service his name is recorded on January 1, 1848. Dur- ing this year he was appointed to the command of the schooner Petrel, engaged on this survey.
In February, 1849, he left New York as the commander of the steamship Panama, the third of the vessels constituting the line of American mail steamers first established for service on the Pacific. The pioneer passage of the Panama was attended with incidents which displayed on the part of the commander courage, caution, patience, and thoroughly competent qualifica- tions for the post to which he had been assigned. After taking the vessel safely to Panama Bay, he was ordered to New York to the command of the mail steamer Georgia, which command he held during the latter part of 1850, the years 1851 and 1852, and a great portion of 1853.
Amongst the many gallant exploits of Admiral Porter was that of running the steamer Crescent City (appropriately named) into the harbor of Havana, during the excitement between the two countries relative to the ship Black Warrior. The Spanish government had refused to permit any United States vessel to enter that port. Running under the shotted guns of Moro Cas- tle, he was ordered to halt. He promptly replied that he car- ried the United States flag and the United States mails, and, by
109
VICE-ADMIRAL DAVID D. PORTER.
the Eternal, he would go in; and he did, the Habaneros fearing to fire upon him. He said afterwards that he intended firing his six-pounder at them once in defiance, after which he would haul down his flag. During the Mexican war, Admiral Porter, then a lieutenant, took a very active part in the naval portion of that conflict. He was the executive officer and first lieutenant under the famous Commodore Tatnall, who had charge of the mosquito fleet in the waters of the Gulf. Their adventures before Vera Cruz are not likely soon to be forgotten.
On the 1st of January, 1854, he is recorded absent again on leave, and at the beginning of the next year awaiting orders. His name now stood at No. 138. During 1855 he was ordered to the command of the storeship Supply, and held this com- mand during the next year, until February, 1857. He was then ordered on shore duty, and on the 1st of January, 1860, was at the Navy Yard at Portsmouth as third in command.
At the beginning of the year 1861, he was under orders to join the Coast Survey on the Pacific, but, fortunately, had not left when the rebellion broke out. His name at this time stood number six on the list of lieutenants. The resignation of several naval traitors left room for his advancement, and the "Naval Register" for August 31, 1861, places him number seventy-seven on the list of commanders, with twenty others between him and the next grade of rank below. He was then placed in command of the steam sloop-of-war Powhatan, a vessel of about twenty-five hundred tons, and armed with eleven guns. In her he took part in one section of the blockading squadron, and left that ship to take the special charge of the mortar expe- ' dition. The active part he took in the reduction of the forts below New Orleans will make his name ever memorable in connection with the mortar fleet, or " bummers," as the sailors term them. After the cap ire of New Orleans he, with his
110
MEN OF OUR DAY.
fleet, went up the Mississippi river, and was engaged in several affairs on that river, including that of Vicksburg From that place he was ordered to the James river, and returned in the Octorara. When off Charleston, on his way to Fortress Monroe, he fell in with and captured the Anglo-rebel steamer Tubal Cain. It was at first supposed that he would have been placed in command of the James river flotilla; but from some cause this plan was changed. He was allowed leave of absence to recruit his health, while his mortar fleet was engaged on the Chesapeake and in front of Baltimore.
In October, 1862, he was appointed to the command of the Mississippi gunboat flotilla, as successor to Commodore Davis, with the rank of acting rear-admiral, and was required to co-operate with General Grant in the assault and siege of Vicks- burg. His services in that siege form a record of which any man might be proud. His squadron was a large one, composed of vessels of all sizes, many of them constructed under his own supervision, and a considerable number were armed steamers, plated with from three to four and a half inches of iron and capable of resisting the shot of any but the heaviest batteries. His previous very thorough knowledge of the Mississippi river was of great advantage to him in this service, as well as in his operations previously and subsequently in the lower Mississippi. In General Grant he evidently found a co-worker after his own heart, for imperious and exacting as the admiral's temper is, they had no difficulties, and he entered most heartily into all the general's efforts to find a suitable point for assailing successfully the Gibraltar of the rebellion. Previous to the coming of General Grant's army to Young's Point, Admiral Porter had cleared the lower Yazoo of torpedoes, losing one gunboat (the Cairo) in the attempt; had assisted Ger eral Sher- man to the utmost of his ability in his attack upon Chickasaw
111
VICE-ADMIRAL DAVID D. PORTER.
Bluffs ; and accompanying General McClernand in his expedi- tion to the post of Arkansas and the White river, nad bom- barded the fort (Fort Hindman) till it surrendered, and broken up the other small forts and driven out the rebel steamers on the White river. He also succeeded in blockading eleven rebel steamers in the Yazoo. His activity during the next six months was incessant; now sending gunboats and rams down the river past the batteries of Vicksburg to destroy the rebel rams and steamers and capture the supplies intended for Vicks- burg and Port Hudson; then firing at the upper or lower batteries of Vicksburg, cutting the levee at Yazoo pass and en- deavoring to force a passage through the Yallobusha and Tallahatchee into the Yazoo; and failing in this, cutting his way through the labyrinth of bayous and creeks to attain the same end. These exercises were varied by sending occasional- ly a coal barge fitted up as a monitor, past the batteries, greatly to the fright of the rebels, who, after concentrating the fires of their batteries on the contrivance without effect, were so badly scared as to destroy the best gunboat (the Indianola taken from Lieutenant Commander Brown) they had on the river, from fear of its capture by this formidable monitor. Then came the hazardous experiment of running gunboats past the batteries, twice repeated, to aid General Grant in his movement to approach Vicksburg from below and from the rear. The success of these enterprises, only two transports out of sixteen or eighteen, and none of the gunboats, being destroyed, was remarkable, and of itself evinced great skill and caution on the part of the admiral. The fight at Grand Gulf was a severe one, and not successful, but the night following the batteries were run, and the troops ferried over to Bruinsburg, from whence they marched to Jackson and to the rear of Vicksburg. Meanwhile a part of the spuadron had been engaged in aiding
112
MEN OF OUR DAY.
Sherman in making a demonstration on Haines' Bluff to draw off the attention of the rebels from Grant's approach by the south.
When, on the 19th of May, Grant's army made their first assault on the rear of Vicksburg, and on the 22d of May, when the second assault was made, Admiral Porter maintained a heavy fire in front, to distract the attention of the rebels; and during the whole siege, whenever a ball or shell could be thrown from his squadron either above or below the city with good effect, it was promptly and accurately hurled. The sur- render of Vicksburg, on the 4th of July, and of Port Hudson on the 9th, opened the Mississippi to our fleet and to merchant steamers, and thenceforth the fleet on the Mississippi acted only as an armed river patrol. The duties of the squadron in these respects were, however, somewhat arduous for a time. The Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, and the Ohio, were in- cluded within its cruising ground ; and the pursuit of Morgan's expedition to Buffington island, and the repressing of occasional rebel raids, kept them almost constantly on the alert.
Early in March, 1864, Admiral Porter ascended the Red river to co-operate with General Banks in his expedition to break up the rebel posts on that river, and penetrate by that route into Texas. The expedition was at first successful, and captured the forts of the enemy, and their principal towns, in a series of brief engagements. But, as they ascended the river, the greed of gain seemed to take possession of the squadron, and large quantities of cotton were gathered up from both shores of the river and brought on board the gunboats ; and they were forced so far up the falling stream, that they were in great danger of being unable to return, and so of becoming a prey to the rebels. The army, too, had been seriously repulsed, and had made a somewhat hasty retreat as far as Grand Ecore.
113
VICE- ADMIRAL DAVID D. PORTER.
From this point downward the squadron was in constant trouble-the larger vessels getting aground, hard and fast, several times a day, and being compelled to tie up at night; harassed almost every hour by small bodies of rebel troops, whom they could only keep off by a free use of canister and grape shot; not making more than thirty miles a day, and the river constantly falling. At length, thirty miles below Grand Ecore, the Eastport, the largest vessel of the squadron, stuck fast and hard upon the rocks in the channel, and could not be moved; and the admiral was compelled to give orders for her destruction. The attempt made by the rebels to board the Cricket, another of his gunboats, at this juncture, was so se- verely punished, that they disappeared, and were not seen again until the mouth of Cane river, twenty miles below, was reached. Here was a rebel battery of eighteen guns, and a severe fight ensued. The Cricket, which was but lightly armed (being, as the men were in the habit of saying, only "tin clad"), was very badly cut up, almost every shot going through her, two of her guns being disabled, and half her crew, and her pilot, and chief engineer, being either killed or badly wounded. Here the splendid personal bravery of Admiral Porter proved their sal- vation. He improvised gunners from the negroes on board, put an assistant in the place of the chief engineer, took the helm himself, and ran past the battery under a terrific fire, which he returned steadily with such of his guns as were still serviceable. The other gunboats, though sadly injured, at length got by- the Champion, only, being so much disabled as to be unable to go on, and being destroyed by order of Admiral Porter.
1
On reaching Alexandria, matters were still worse. In the low stage of water, the rapids were impassable by the gun- boats, and at first their destruction seemed inevitable. But the engineer of the Nineteenth army corps, Lieutenant-Colonel
3
114
MEN OF OUR DAY.
Joseph Bailey (afterward promoted to the rank of brigadier- general for this great service), devised a way of floating them over the rapids, by the construction of a series of wing-dams partly across the river at several points. The task was hercu- lean, but it was skilfully and speedily accomplished, and by the 13th of May all the gunboats had passed the barrier and were on their way to the Mississippi river, still one hundred and fifty miles distant. Before this time, however, two small gunboats and two transports, laden with troops, were attacked by the rebels, and both the transports and one gunboat captured, and the other burned. Admiral Porter returned to his patrol of the Mississippi, from whence, soon after, he was transferred to the command of the North Atlantic squadron. Here he was busy, for a time, with the removal of torpedoes in the naviga- ble waters of Virginia and North Carolina ; in capturing block- ade runners ; and cruising after the pirates who seized our merchant steamers. But his restless activity and energy could not be satisfied without striking a blow at the chief port of entry for which the blockade runners aimed, and into which at least seven out of every ten succeeded in entering. Wilming. ton, North Carolina, had, during the whole war, been one of the chief seats of the contraband trade of the rebels, and the blockade runners had been more successful in eluding the vigi- lance, or escaping from the pursuit of the blockading squadron there, than either at Charleston or Mobile. This was due in part to its position, and the defences of the harbor. Five forts protected the entrance to the estuary of Cape Fear river; and while they were sufficient to prevent any access to the river by the blockading squadron, they effectually shielded the block- ade runners, who succeeded in effecting an entrance, by either inlet, to the estuary. Of these works, Fort Fisher, one of the most formidable earthworks on the coast, was the chief; and it
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.