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 8
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She was at this time sore beset ; the Chickasaw was pounding away at her stern, the Ossipee was approaching her at full speed, and the Monongahela, Lackawanna, and this ship, were
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bearing down upon her, determined upon her destruction. Her smoke-stack had been shot away, her steering-chains were gone, compelling a resort to her relieving-tackles, and several of her port-shutters were jammed. Indeed, from the time the Hart- ford struck her, until her surrender, she never fired a gun. As the Ossipee, Commander Le Roy, was about to strike her, she hoisted the white flag, and that vessel immediately stopped her engine, though not in time to avoid a glancing blow. During this contest with the rebel gunboats and the ram Tennessee, and which terminated by her surrender at 10 o'clock, we lost many more men than from the fire of the batteries of Fort Morgan."
During the engagement, the admiral had lashed himself in a perilous position in the main rigging, near the top-from which he could see, much more easily than from the deck, the progress of the fight; and, it is said, that, at the moment of the collision between the Hartford and the Lackawanna, when the men all cried to each other, to "save the admiral," he in the maintop, finding that the ship would float at least long enough to serve his purpose, and intent only on that, called out to his fleet-captain, "Go on with speed ! Ram her again !"
Yet amid this perilous excitement, he forgot not to notice the admirable conduct of the men at their guns, throughout the fleet, and, in a manner tender and sympathetic, alludes to their heroism, in his report, as follows :- "Although no doubt their hearts sickened as mine did, when their shipmates were struck down beside them, yet there was not a moment's hesitation to lay their comrades aside and spring again to their deadly work." Humane in feeling as he is gallant in action, Farragut, learning that his vanquished rival, the rebel Admiral Buchanan was severely wounded-(he subsequently lost a leg by amputa- tion)-promptly requested permission of the commandant of
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Fort Morgan, to send the admiral and the other wounded rebel officers, under flag of truce, to the Union hospitals at Pensacola. The request was granted, and a vessel was detailed for their conveyance. By this victory were secured the entire destruc- tion of the rebel fleet, the capture of the armored ship Tennes- see, and of two hundred and thirty rebel officers and men; the abandonment, on the day following, of Fort Powell, with eigh- teen guns; the subsequent surrender of Fort Gaines, with fifty- six officers, one thousand eight hundred and eighteen men, and twenty-six guns; and (after a twenty-four hour bombardment) of Fort Morgan with sixty guns, and six hundred prisoners- and the hermetical sealing up of the port of Mobile against blockade-runners, in itself a most serious blow to the Confeder- ate cause.
Remaining in command of the West Gulf Squadron, till November, 1864, he requested leave of absence, and was called to Washington for consultation in regard to future naval move- ments. A resolution of thanks to him, for his magnificent services, was passed by Congress, and the rank of vice admiral (corresponding to that of lieutenant-general in the army) was created for him-thus making him virtually the chief comman- der of the naval forces of the United States. In July 1866, the rank of admiral was created by Congress, and he was promoted to this, and Rear-Admiral Porter made vice-admiral.
During the time he was in command of the West Gulf squad- ron, it had more fighting and less prizes than fell to the share of any other blockading squadron on the coast, and while the admirals of the other fleets had acquired large fortunes from prize- money, Farragut had received little beyond his regular pay. In view of this fact, the merchants of New York subscribed the sum of fifty thousand dollars, which was presented to him in United States 7.30 Treasury notes, in January, 1865, in testi-
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mony of their appreciation of his ability as a naval commander, and of the great services which he had conferred upon com- merce and the nation.
In April, 1865, Vice-Admiral Farragut revisited Norfolk for the first time since he had left it in 1861, and was received with an address of welcome from a committee of the Loyal League of that city. In his reply to their congratulations he made the following pertinent remarks concerning his own share in the rebellion just closed, "I was unwilling to believe that this difficulty would not have been settled; but it was all in vain, and, as every man must do in a revolution, as he puts his foot down, so it marks his life ; so it has pleased God to protect me thus far, and make me somewhat instrumental in dealing heavy blows at the rebellion. I have been nothing more than an instrument in the hands of God, well supported by my officers and men, who have done their duty faithfully."
In the spring of_1867, Admiral Farragut, still desirous of sea service, joined the Mediterranean Squadron, and has been for nearly a year in European waters, everywhere received with the highest honors, and everywhere noticeable for his modesty, his patriotism, and his zeal for his country's honor and pros- perity.
After all the vicissitudes of so remarkable a life, forty years of which have been spent afloat, Admiral Farragut is as vigorous in body, clear of head, and strong of purpose, as in his earlier days. In his nature, gentleness of temper is allied with a bravery that disdains all obstacles, impatience of delay, and disregard of danger; vivacity of manner with extreme frankness and good humor; a high-toned honesty of life with devotion to duty, and a broad general education with the most minute acquaintance of every detail of thorough seamanship. He has accomplished results which, in the words of the English Army and Navy
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Gazette (not over-favorable to any thing American), "place him at the head of his profession, and certainly constitute him the first naval officer of the day," and he has accomplished them by force of a will which never admits the possibility of defeat. “I did not expect to succeed," said the gallant Commodore Dupont, to him, when relating the many obstacles and difficulties which opposed his excellent but unsuccessful attack, with the moni tors, on Fort Sumter. " That is the very reason you did not succeed," was Farragut's characteristic reply.
WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN.
ILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN, son of Hon. Charles R. Sherman, for some years a judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, and a brother of Hon. John Sherman, the well known United States Sena- tor from that State, was born in Lancaster, Ohio, on the 8th of February, 1820. His early education was obtained in the schools of his native town, but after his father's death, which occurred when he was nine years of age, he became a member of the family of Hon. Thomas Ewing, where he enjoyed still wider advantages; and, at the age of sixteen, entered the United States Military Academy at West Point. Graduating from that institution, June 30th, 1840, with the sixth rank of his class, he was immediately appointed to a second lieutenancy in the Third Artillery, and served through the next year in Florida, achieving some distinction by the masterly manner in which he foiled certain maneuvers of the wily Indian chief " Billy Bow. legs." In November, 1841, Sherman was made a first lieuten- ant, and, shortly after, was ordered to Fort Moultrie, Charleston harbor, where he remained several years, forming intimacies with eminent citizens of South Carolina, which it required all his firmness and patriotism in after years, to abandon. In 1846 he was transferred to California and made assistant adjutant general, performing his duties with such marked ability, that
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Congress, in 1851, made him captain, by brevet, dating from May 30th, 1848, "for meritorious services in California, during the war with Mexico." In September, 1850, he was appointed Commissary of Subsistence, with rank of captain, and assigned to the staff of the commander of the Department of the West, with headquarters at St. Louis. During the same year he mar- ried the daughter of his old friend, Hon. Thomas Ewing, and was soon after stationed at New Orleans, where he became well acquainted with the leading men of Louisiana. In September, 1853, he resigned his commission in the army, and was, for four years ensuing, the manager of the banking house of Lucas, Turner & Co., of San Francisco, California. In 1857, his ser- vices were solicited and secured, by some of his old Louisiana friends, as the President and Superintendent of a State Military Academy, which they were then establishing, and he assumed his position early in 1858. The objects and inducements alleged for the creation of such an institution were, of them- selves, reasonable and plausible ; and it was not until after the commencement of the Presidential campaign of 1860, that he became aware of the disloyal sentiments existing among the majority of the leading men of the State, or of the real and treasonable purposes which had influenced them in founding the academy over which he presided. Simultaneously with the unavoidable unmasking of their plans, these men now strove, by every persuasive art, to induce him to join with them in their revolutionary projects. But the solicitations of friendship, the proffer of gold, and the tender of high official position, failed to shake, even for a moment, the sterling loyalty of the soldier. Amazed at the revelation, and convinced that civil war was inevitable, he promptly sent to the Governor of the State the following letter of resignation :-
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JANUARY 18, 1861.
Gov. THOMAS O. MOORE, Baton Rouge, La.
SIR :- As I occupy a quasi-military position under this State, I deem it proper to acquaint you that I accepted such position when Louisiana was a State in the Union, and when the motto of the seminary was inserted in marble over the main door, " By the liberality of the General Government of the United States. The Union, Esto Perpetua." Recent events foreshadow a great change, and it becomes all men to choose. If Louisiana with- draws from the Federal Union, I prefer to maintain my alle- giance to the Old Constitution as long as a fragment of it sur- vives, and my longer stay here would be wrong in every sense of the word. In that event, I beg you will send or appoint some authorized agent to take charge of the arms and munitions of war here belonging to the State, or direct me what disposition should be made of them. And furthermore, as President of the Board of Supervisors, I beg you to take immediate steps to relieve me as Superintendent, the moment the State determines to secede ; for, on no earthly account will I do any act or think any thought, hostile to, or in defiance of, the old Government of the United States.
With great respect, &c.,
(Signed)
W. T. SHERMAN.
His resignation was accepted with regret, by those who knew his worth as a man and his value as a soldier, and an in- structor of soldiers; and, in February, he removed with his family to St. Louis. Shortly before the attack on Fort Sumter he visited Washington, and, conversant as he was with the intentions and plans of the Southern leaders-he was amazed at the apathy and incredulity of the Government, who, as he said, " were sleeping on a volcano, which would surely burst upon them unprepared." Urging upon government officials the imminency of the impending danger and the fearful lack of preparation to meet it, he also proffered his services as a sol- dier who had been educated at the country's expense and
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who owed every thing to her care and institutions. But the threatened storm was generally regarded, by those in authority, as a matter which would " blow over" in sixty, or, at the most in ninety days, and he could find no one to comprehend or indorse his views in regard to the necessity of immediately call- ing out an immense army for the war. Upon the organization, however, of the new regiments of the regular army, in June, 1861, he was made colonel of the new 13th infantry, his com mission dating from May 14th, 1861. His first actual service in the war was at the battle of Bull Run, or Manassas, where he commanded the Third Brigade in the First (Tyler's) Division. The spirited manner in which he handled his men was in strong contrast to the many disgraceful scenes which have made that day one of ignoble memories. The vigor and desperate valor, indeed, with which Sherman fought his brigade on that occasion, is evidenced by the fact that its losses were far heavier than any other brigade in the Union army ; his total of killed, wounded and missing, being six hundred and nine, while that of the whole division was but eight hundred and fifty-nine, and of the entire army, aside from prisoners and stragglers, but fif- teen hundred and ninety. His valor and good conduct were promptly rewarded by his appointment as a brigadier-general of volunteers, his commission dating from May 17th, 1861; and, early in August, he was made second in command of the Department of the Ohio, under General Anderson. On the 8th of October he was appointed to the chief command, in place of that general, who had been obliged to resign on account of ill health. The Department of the Ohio, which, at this time, com- prised all east of the Mississippi, and west of the Alleghanies, was in a deplorable condition ; paucity of troops; insufficiency' of supplies and munitions of war; a surrounding country, luke- warm, if not openly inimical to the Union cause, and tlie close
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proximity of large, well equipped and well officered forces of the enemy (who, if they had known his real condition, could have driven him "out of his boots" in ten days) rendered Sher- man's situation a most unenviable one. In addition to the pressure of these unfavorable circumstances, he now found him- self annoyed and seriously endangered by the presence in his camp of numbers of those " gad-flies" of the press-newspaper letter writers and reporters-whose indiscreetness threatened to reveal to the enemy, the very facts which most needed con- cealment. He soon put an end to this risk by a stringent general-order, which excluded the whole busy crew from his lines, and, of course, brought down upon his own head an ava- lanche of indignation from a hitherto "untrammeled press." Sherman's greatest difficulty, however, was the impossibility of making the Government comprehend the magnitude of the con- test which it was waging, and the necessity of placing a large and well appointed army in the field, which should make short work with rebellion by the crushing weight of numbers. When, in October 1861, he explained to the Secretary of War the critical position of his own department, and, in reply to a question of the number of troops needed for an immediate for- ward and decisive movement, replied "two hundred thousand men"-his words were considered visionary-and he was incon- tinently pronounced " crazy," by government officials as well as by the newspaper press, who had not forgiven him for his for- mer severity. Chagrined at the distrust of his military judg- ment thus evinced by his superiors, Sherman, in November 1861, asked to be relieved from his position, and was succeeded by General Buell, who, being immediately reinforced with the troops so often requested by and so persistently denied to his predecessor, was enabled to hold the department in a defensive attitude, until the opening of the spring campaign.
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Sherman, meanwhile, was left to rust in command of Benton barracks, near St. Louis, until General Halleck, who succeeded Fremont in command of the Western Department, and who well knew the abilities of the man, detailed him for service in General Grant's army; and, after the capture of Fort Donelson, he was placed in command of that general's fifth division, com- posed mostly of raw troops, whom he began immediately to drill and perfect. Soon the storm of battle again burst upon him, at Shiloh, April 6th, 1862, where he had taken position three miles out from Pittsburgh Landing, on the Corinth road. Sustaining, against great odds, the repeated and furious onsets of the enemy on the 6th, he assumed the offensive on the 7th, and pushed them back with heavy loss; and, on the morning of the 8th, pushing still forward, met and routed their cavalry, and captured many prisoners and large quantities of arms and ammunition. During the advance upon Corinth, which followed this battle of Shiloh, his division was constantly in the lead and carried, occupied, and reintrenched seven distinct camps of the enemy; and when, on the 30th of May, Beauregard retreated from the city, it was Sherman's gallant division which took possession of it. Occupying with these raw recruits, at the opening battle of Shiloh, "the key point of the landing," says General Grant, in his official report, “it is no disparagement to any other officer to say, that I do not believe there was another division commander on the field who had the skill and expe- rience to have done it. To his individual efforts I am indebted for the success of that battle." General Halleck also records it as the "unanimous opinion, that General Sherman saved the for- tunes of the day ; he was in the thickest of the fight, had three horses killed under him, and was twice wounded"-and in this eulogium of his services, every general officer, as well as others, heartily concurred. At the earnest request of Generals Grant
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and Halleck, Sherman was made a major-general of volunteers, dating from May 1st, 1862. Appointed by General Grant, in the spring of 1862, to the command of the district of Memphis, Tennessee, he thoroughly suppressed, within the course of six months, the guerrilla warfare and contraband trade which had rendered it, in the opinion of rebel officers, a more valuable position to them in the possession of the Federal government, then it ever had been while in their own. When, in December, 1862, General Grant began his operations against Vicksburg, he first placed Sherman in command of the fifteenth army corps, and after the latter had made some important reconnoissances, he took him into his confidence regarding his plan for the capture of that city. According to this plan, Sherman, with four picked divisions, sailed from Memphis in December, to make a direct attack upon Chickasaw Bluffs, a part of the defences of Vicksburg . on the river side, while Grant himself, proceeding down the Missis- sippi Central railroad, to Jackson, Mississippi, was to move to the rear of the city. Grant's movement, however, was prevented by the unexpected surrender of Holly Springs, on the Mississippi Central railroad, which was to be his base of supplies, and he was also unable to communicate the fact to Sherman. Unconscious of this, therefore, the latter pressed on, disembarked on the 26th and 27th of December, and after three days' desperate fighting, which failed to make any impression upon the fortifications of the city, had the mortification to be superseded in command by General McClernand, a volunteer officer, to whom he transferred the command with a soldierly loyalty and manliness, which few men, in his circumstances, would have been able to exhibit towards a civilian general, and a rival. The repulse of the Chickasaw Bluffs, however, was subsequently fully compensated for by the hearty praise and candid criticism of General Grant and other eminent military critics, who saw, in the natural topo-
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graphy of the ground, the insuperable obstacles against which he had so bravely contended. Sherman's next most brilliant exploit was his rapid and successful movement for the relief of Admiral Porter's fleet of gunboats, on the Sunflower river, which were in danger of being hemmed in by the enemy, while attempting to reach Haines' Bluff, above Vicksburg, with a view to an attack on the city. In Grant's subsequent attempt on the city from below, the role assigned to Sherman was one involving considerable danger, and requiring a high degree of military tact-being a feigned attack, or rather a demonstration, in conjunction with the gunboats, on Haines' Bluff. This attack, which continued with great fury for two days, enabled Grant to land his troops without opposition at a point seventy miles below,-then, by a forced six days' march over terrible roads, General Sherman joined his force to that of Grant at Grand Gulf, and the whole army moved forward. We next find Sherman operating with McPherson in a series of brilliant movements, resulting in the rout of the enemy and the capture of Jackson, Mississippi, and the destruction of numerous rail- road bridges, machine shops, and arsenals at that point; then, by a succession of rapid marches, which General Grant charac- terized as "almost unequalled," he wrested the possession of Walnut Hills from the enemy, cutting their force in two, and compelling the evacuation of Haines', Snyder's, Walnut, and Chickasaw Bluff's, together with all their strong works; and enabling General Grant at once to open communication with the fleet and his new base on the Yazoo and Mississippi, above Vicksburg. To General Sherman it was perhaps an additional source of pleasure that the position which he had thus gained by a rear attack, was the very one against which, less than five months before, he had hurled his troops in vain. In the first assault on the enemy's lines, May 19th, Sherman's corps, alone
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of the three engaged, succeeded in making any material advance. The surrender of the city of Vicksburg, on the 4th of July brought rest and comfort to all of the brave " Army of the Tennessee, except to Sherman's corps, who were immediately started in pursuit of Johnston, then hovering in the rear of the Union army. Johnston marched at once to Jackson, which he attempted to defend, but finally, on the night of the 16th, evacuated hastily, abandoning every thing to Sherman, of whom General Grant said, in reference to this last success, "It entitles General Sherman to more credit than usually falls to the lot of one man to earn." A well earned rest of two months was terminated, September 23d, by orders from Grant to reinforce Rosecrans, who had just fought the battle of Chickamauga. Promptness, celerity of movement, and a force of will which overcame every obstacle which enemy or accident placed in his way, characterized his execution of this order. Arriving at Memphis, he pushed on to open communication between that city and Chattanooga; and, while so engaged, was appointed commander of the Army of the Tennessee, at the request of General Grant, who had been advanced to the command of the Grand Military Division of the Mississippi, comprising the Armies of the Cumberland, the Ohio, and the Tennessee. On the 15th of November, under imperative orders from Grant, and by a forced march, he joined that general at Chattanooga, and exhausted as his men were, by the arduous march from Memphis, he at once received, and promptly obeyed, orders to cross the Tennessee, make a lodgment on the terminus of Missionary Ridge and demonstrate against Bragg's flank. The roads were in a horrible condition, but by herculean exer- tions, three divisions were put across the river and concealed, during the night of November 23d, behind some hills, and by one o'clock, the following morning, his whole force had crossed
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both the Tennessee and the Chickamauga, and under cover of a rain and dense fog, the cavalry dashed forward to cut the Chattanooga and Knoxville, and the Cleveland and Dalton rail- roads, while the infantry, by half past three, P. M., surprised and captured the fortifications on the terminus of Missionary Ridge ; and the Union guns being dragged up the steep ascent, quickly silenced the fire which was opened upon them from the batteries of the discomforted and enraged enemy. The night was spent in rest and preparation for the struggle which the morrow would inevitably bring for the possession of Fort Buck- ner, the formidable fortification which crowned the next or superior ridge of the hill. To General Sherman, on account of his known abilities and, more especially, his unquestioning obedience to military necessities, was assigned a task requiring firmness and self-sacrifice, unattended with any immediate hope of reputation and fame, but which he accepted with that prompt- ness which always characterizes him. It was, to make a per- sistent demonstration against Fort Buckner, in order to draw the enemy's force from Forts Bragg and Breckinridge, which being weakened, would fall an easier conquest to Grant's storm- ing column. Splendidly did this masterly soldier and his brave men carry out their part in the programme of the battle of the 25th. From sunrise, until three o'clock, they surged forward in desperate charges upon the fortifications of the crested heights above them-again and again were repulsed-still gained a little and steadily held what they gained-until the enemy had massed nearly his whole force against the struggling column; when, suddenly, Hooker swooped down upon Fort Bragg, and at twenty minutes to four P. M., Thomas's Fourth army corps, charging in solid column up the ridge, carried Fort Breckinridge by assault-and the battles of Chattanooga were won. The glorious success of that day was due quite as much
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