History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio, Part 30

Author: Williams Brothers
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 443

USA > Ohio > Lake County > History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio > Part 30
USA > Ohio > Geauga County > History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio > Part 30

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invested the fort, beat back the fifteen thousand rebels, who made a desperate attempt to cut through his lines, and Buckner concluded "to accept the un- generous and unchivalrous terms you (General Grant) propose," which were " unconditional surrender."

In the naval engagements the " Old Woodens" were under Mr. Phelps' com- mand in both battles. In the interval their commander swept the Tennessee to Muscle shoals, capturing the rebel transports and gunboat " Eastport," with which he did such splendid service, and finally blew up with his own hand after the Red River expedition. He landed, drove off a regiment from its quarters, captured its camp, two lots of arms, returned to the Ohio in time to join Foote in the desperate fight with the Donelson shore-batteries. Phelps' appearance in North Alabama produced wide-spread consternation. After the fall of Donelson, he was placed in command of the iron-clad " Benton," Commo- dore Foote's flag-ship, and became flag and fleet captain.

The fall of Donelson compelled A. Sidney Johnson to retreat from Bowling Green, a stronghold in Kentucky. It was found impossible to defend Nashville, where " there was mounting in hot haste," and a hurry to Memphis, three hun- dred miles from Bowling Green, and General Buell made the capital of Tennessee his headquarters. Columbus, another rebel stronghold in Kentucky, under the Reverend Episcopal Polk, which commanded the Mississippi, became untenable. He had barely escaped when Admiral Foote, with his flotilla, and General Sher- man, with three thousand troops, made their appearance. The enemy had spanned the Mississippi with a mighty chain, and hurried down its flood forty-five miles to " Island No. 10," which they strongly fortified. The island is at a sharp bend of the river, on the Missouri side, a few miles above New Madrid. Here the rebels, concentrated and strengthened, made a desperate stand for the control of the Mississippi, upon which, as was soon to appear, rested the foundations of the Confederacy. Pope was already-early in March-in front of New Madrid, which had strong earthworks, and six gunboats in the river. Foote was prepared to attack No. 10 about the 15th of March, and two days later, with five iron- clads and four mortar-boats, he made a fearful though ineffectual assault of nine hours, doing little damage. Meantime the engineers cut a canal across the penin- sula, which permitted the gunboats to pass below the island, while two, in a foggy night, passed it in the river, when the island was compelled to surrender, with some thousands of men. The fleet then moved down, and was next arrested at Fort Pillow, on the Chickasaw bluffs, near Islands 33 and 34. A long, ineffective bombardment, in which shore-mortars had a part, followed, about the middle of April. Meantime the enemy, reinforced by a powerful ram from below,-bomb- proof, backed by their gunboats, on the 4th of May attacked our flotilla, crippled the " Cincinnati," and a general battle ensued. The ram was finally cut into and sunk. One of the enemy's gunboats was burnt, another had her boiler exploded with a shot, and the battle ended in their general discomfiture. Fort Pillow was evacuated, as was Fort Randolph, below, soon after.

This was followed by a pitched naval battle, near Memphis, June 4. The . severe wound of Admiral Foote, in the battle of Island No. 10, finally disabled him for active duty, and he was succeeded by Commodore Davis, who dropped down near Memphis and anchored, with five gunboats and four rams. The next morning, a rebel fleet of eight gunboats approached in line of battle, and opened fire at three-quarters of a mile. The fleet up anchors, and in line bore down, open- ing fire as soon as the safety of the city permitted, when a fierce battle ensued. In its course, the Union ram "Queen of the West" crushed the "General Price," and forced her on to the Arkansas shore; was in turn assailed by the " Beaure- gard" and disabled. Thereupon, our ram " Monarch" sunk the " Beauregard," with a large portion of her crew, and taking the " Queen" in tow removed her from peril. Meantime, Captain Phelps' ship threw a fifty-pound shot from a rifled Parrott into the rebel " General Lovell," aft near the water-line, when in four minutes she filled and sank in seventy-five feet of water with her crew. The remaining rebel boats, drifting, though still firing, headed for the Arkansas shore. The " Jeff Thompson" was the first to strike land, was deserted, and burned by a shell. The crews of the " Bragg" and "Sumter" escaped in like manner, while the swifter and luckier " Van Dorn" escaped down the river, where she was soon after destroyed. The battle lasted an hour; was witnessed by the popu- lation of Memphis, who saw their fleet destroyed by one of about the same weight and force. The city surrendered to Captain Phelps, who landed for that purpose, and was first met by the smiles of a beautiful Union woman. The victorious fleet swept down the river, meeting no obstruction till it reached fatal Vicksburg, which, with Port Hudson, were the only points of any strength in the hands of the enemy. These were clung to with a dying grasp. It was now the 24th of June, 1862. They were not to fall for more than a twelvemonth. Here the upper fleet found Admiral Farragut below with his squadron, having four regi- ments on board, under General Williams, whose second in command was another Chardon boy, General Hal Paine. He and Phelps had parted boys. They now

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HISTORY OF GEAUGA AND LAKE COUNTIES, OHIO.

met grave commanders, laughed in their mutual surprise at each other's appear- ance, talked over dear old Geauga days, and separated. .

I may not linger at Vicksburg, nor tell of the bombardments or running the river batteries, nor how the rebel ram " Arkansas" came down the Yazoo and ran through the Union fleet, and took refuge under the rebel guns, and how she refused to be destroyed or captured; and how the siege was finally raised, and Davis and Phelps steamed up to the mouth of the Yazoo. Up this stream Cap- tain Phelps commanded an expedition, made many captures, and rendered much valuable service. After the Yazoo expedition, congestive chills compelled him to retire and recruit. During this interval he visited dear old Chardon, and returned to the squadron, now under Admiral D. D. Porter. Preparations were made for the final fate of Vicksburg, and Phelps had orders to run the batteries and go below. The " Eastport" smashed her bottom on a sunk log. Ere she could be repaired, Vicksburg and Port Hudson had fallen. The Mississippi was ours, the Confederacy severed, and though many great and bloody struggles were yet to be encountered, they were all death-struggles.

When the " Eastport" was repaired Captain Phelps found the fleet to consist of fifteen iron-clads, with forty or fifty other efficient craft. He was assigned to the command of the second division, with the personal command of the " Eastport," his powerful iron-clad ram. The field of his duty was the Mississippi, from the Ar- kansas to the Ohio, and all its tributaries, including those rivers, the Tennessee, and Cumberland. It was a relentless, endless, vigilant armed patrol of all those waters, many of whose banks were in the hands of the enemy, who infested their wild, cane-brake, interminable shores, in all possible forms of hostilities, from organized warfare, lawless partisanship, down through all the grades of raiding, marauding, murdering, piracy, and rapine. The details of these patrols and ad- ventures, of batteries in ambush, and waylaying sharpshooters; of the surprises of rebel camps, the consequent destruction of life, and capture; of all the strange, startling, sometimes amusing, sometimes ludicrous, and always interesting inci- dents of this service, would fill a well-told volume. In the annals of modern warfare there is nothing else like it.

In the latter part of January, 1864, the disastrous Red River expedition set out for the capture of Shreveport, the annihilation of the rebel forces west of the Mississippi, the consequent crushing of the enemy in Texas, and the acquisition of boundless cotton,-the last a matter known to be near the heart of President Lincoln. Over this I must linger. Its objects, briefly, were patriotism, politics, and plunder. The campaign claims the high authority of General Halleck. The region was in Bragg's department. His lieutenants were Kirby Smith and Dick Taylor,-two somewhat mythical palladins,-with a mobile force of twenty-five thousand, near Shreveport. The assailing force was to be Porter's powerful fleet, with forty thousand men under Banks, made up of ten thousand of Sherman's old force from Vicksburg, under A. J. Smith, who were to move up the Red river on the fleet, take Fort De Russey, and remove the impediments planted in its bottom and along its banks by the industrious enemy. At Alexandria this force was to meet General Banks, who would reach it overland with fifteen thousand men, while Steel, with fifteen thousand more, was to march direct on Shreveport from Little Rock. Planned admirably, one would think, to permit a vigilant enemy with twenty-five thousand good troops to attack each in detail with an overwhelming force.

Porter, who knew his man, placed Phelps in command of the advance division of the fleet, with the powerful " Eastport" in the van, to pluck the teeth and claws of the rebels. It was the most arduous service of the navy in the war. Slowly the obstructions were removed, and the " Eastport" and her consort, the " Neosho," pushed on to De Russy.

After a few shots from the " Eastport" the fort was carried by assault by Smith, who landed. The " Eastport" pushed on with her supports, and Alexan- dria was abandoned without a struggle March 16. Here a junction was made with Banks, and here the real difficulties commenced. By all the rules the river should have risen, but, being rebel, it fell, although they did not. From Alex- andria up is a rapid, with six feet water on the fall at that time. The heavier iron-clads had to be left at Alexandria, which some of them reached with difficulty. The others, drawing from seven to ten feet, were forced up with labor- ious slowness. Here, too, three thousand men were returned to Vicksburg; and as Steel could by no possibility co-operate with Banks, his promised forty thousand were reduced to half that number, while the aggregate rebel force barring the way to Shreveport was twenty-five thousand, well appointed, and seventy guns. From Alexandria to that place was one hundred and eighty miles, much of the way a thin, sandy pine region, thinly inhabited. The river continued to fall, and the gunboats could not get beyond Grand Ecore, just above Nachitoches, which is on the old channel. Here unquestionably Banks should have stopped. He did not. I cannot even sketch his adventures in detail. He pushed forward on the 7th of April, and on the next day, late in the afternoon, he met the trans-

Mississippi army, twenty thousand strong, under Kirby Smith and Dick Taylor, at Sabine Cross-Roads. Not a third of his army was in supporting distance. When outflanked, outnumbered three to one, after an hour's desperate fight he was forced back. Another of our divisions, under Franklin, came up, a new line was interposed, and the foe, by a sweeping charge, crushed it back spite its des- perate resistance. The narrow forest way was choked with a supply-train, and an orderly retreat was impossible. The loss of valuable officers, guns, and ma- terial was great, and but for stanch old Emory it would have been a rout. He was in the rear of Franklin; was told of the disaster in front. He drew up three miles from Sabine in admirable disposition. When the rebels came cheering and yelling on, and charged up the pleasant slope, they were stopped; our advantage of position was overbalanced by their numbers, and after an hour and a half at close quarters darkness put an end to the fight. Emory certainly saved the army, possibly the fleet. There was still A. J. Smith's fresh division.

The next day was fought the terrible battle of Pleasant Hill between the more nearly-equalized armies. Both claimed the victory. We retook some of our guns and many prisoners. Banks had nothing for it but to retreat, and he began it so early that there was showing for the rebel claim. However the merits of this day may be settled, the expedition was a disastrous failure.

Meantime, toilsomely, the gunboats had worked their upward way to Spring- field Landing, when news of Sabine Cross-Roads, Pleasant Hill, and general ruin reached the adventurous commander of the advance, with orders to return. He was about essaying the removal of a steamboat sunk to stay his upward way when he received it. Reluctantly he obeyed. The river was low and falling, and the navigation almost impossible. And now came the victorious enemy, swarm- ing the cane-covered banks of the narrow stream at every turn and bend, with artillery and sharpshooters, the latter so high as to be able to fire down upon them with impunity, while the men, greatly exposed, toiled to work the boats over the shoals and bars of this treacherous river. They made a regular attack at Coushatta. After which, with two thousand cavalry and four guns, we were constantly annoyed. Our vessels could at best make not more than thirty miles a day, and were obliged to tie up at night, so that the enemy could easily keep up with them. At length General Tom Green, with two thousand infantry (Texans) made a more determined attack, and his head had to be blown off, and one of his guns disabled, before he could be quieted. His frantic men seemed to think that in that narrow, crooked, shallow channel a gunboat could be carried by an infantry charge. Finally, the " Lexington" got them under a raking fire of canister, and strewed the bank for a mile with their bodies, which had a tendency to en- lighten them. Five hundred of them were killed here, which so far improved their military knowledge that five thousand more, who were hastening to intercept the boats at a point below, changed their minds and course of advance.

Meantime, slowly the beleaguered gunboats worked downward. The " East- port," as she had been the first to advance, was now the last to retire. The van had become the rearguard. She was finally blown up by a rebel torpedo. Her indefatigable captain raised and towed her sixty miles by two powerful tugs and pump-boats. She finally stuck on a sunken rebel raft, from which no power at his command could remove her. She lay across the narrow stream, forming a dam, forcing the river to run around bow and stern in two forceful torrents. Admiral Porter ordered her destruction. The neighborhood was infested with the enemy, and briefest time and most effective means were required. Neither ship, guns, or machinery should be theirs. To her broadside she added bow- and stern-guns. The last were removed, and great quantities of powder placed in the bottom under each of these casemates. Powder was placed in the cylinders and among the machinery, with a train laid along the deck communicating with the various deposits. This was covered with cotton. When all was ready, the crew, officers, and every living thing was removed from the vessel save the intrepid commander, who remained to fire the train with his own hand. His means of escape was a gig, with a crew of four holding at the stern, into which he was to leap. He resolved to fire the train in the officers' mess-room, from which he would pass through his own cabin, traverse thirty feet of deck, leap through the stern port- hole, and gain the taffrail and gig. Lighting a match, he parted the train of cotton-covered powder, and coolly applied it to the end leading to the bow, and stood for an instant to observe the effect ere applying the match to the other end of the train. In an instant he was enveloped in a cloud of smoke and flame. The exploding powder threw burning fibres of cotton everywhere, and ignited the train leading to the stern casemate, over which he must pass in the race of fate. There was an instant's confusion of the cool, daring brain. The pre-determina- tion of the strong man ruled the lithe frame as an instinct. He passed the cabin, dashed across the deck, shot from the port-hole, and leaped from the taffrail as the doomed thing quivered with the throes of destruction, and he lit in the gig as the mighty mass of iron and timber was hurled harmlessly over his head, by the powder under the stern casemate, with a power which shook earth and river for

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HISTORY OF GEAUGA AND LAKE COUNTIES, OHIO.

leagues. Instinctively the gig's crew liberated her, and the torrent, leaping like a mad thing, swept the light shell away,-not too soon, for in an instant the thunder of the stern was answered by the thunder of the bow. The iron mass fell short of the fleeing boat. The solid timbers, rent to shivers, gave them a shower of light buffets. Porter from his boat, half a mile below them, saw the flame leap from the port, but did not see his intrepid officer, and supposed com- mander and ship had perished together, while his devoted crew were anxiously awaiting him on the " H. Hindman," a tin-clad, light-armed, light-draft craft, with just iron enough to protect from minie-bullets,-whom he joined.

Immediately following the destruction of the " Eastport," the rebels, twelve hun- dred strong, made a rush to board the admiral's little tin-clad " Cricket," which stood out from the bank and opened on them with grape and canister. The " H. Hindman" and another got in a cross-fire, and in five minutes the coast was cleared. Twenty miles below, at the mouth of Cane river, on rounding a bend, the squadron came upon a rebel shore-battery of eighteen guns, hidden in the canebrake. The " Cricket" was ahead, and had the fire of every gun, receiving thirty-two shot and shell in four minutos. Her after-gun disabled, every gunner killed, or wounded. In an instant a shell exploded by her forward gun, sweep- ing off every man, entered the fire-room, and left but one unwounded man there. Porter himself assumed command, improvised colored gunners, put an assistant in the place of the slain chief-engineer, stepped to the place of a wounded pilot, and ordered her to run past the battery, which she did. One of the pump-boats re- ceived a shot in her boiler, and her people were killed by steam. The other, lashed to the light draft " Juliet," was disabled in the rudder. The " Juliet" had one of her cylinders smashed, and her steering-wheel shot away. The " H. Hind- man" had a shot through her magazine, where it passed through a barrel of pow- der, and also a man, but failed to blow up the ship. Phelps laid his vessel between the disabled crafts and battery, and covered them until they were able to get out of range by heading up river. During the night he repaired damages as he could, lashed the two gunboats together, and at eleven the next day moved down . to pass the hidden battery. Quite the first shot from the enemy smashed the "Ju- liet's" remaining cylinder, and the next demolished the " Hindman's" steering- apparatus. The vessels were unmanageable, going round and round, striking the shore at every whirl, under the battery. They, however, got by, though awfully cut up. The pump-boat was less fortunate ; disabled, it ran on the opposite shore, and was captured. Ere the vessels moved in the morning Captain Phelps had placed on the decks a large quantity of shell, with quarter-second fuses. True, they might be ignited on board, but the readiness with which they could be used against the enemy overbalanced that hazard in his mind. Just as he passed below the battery, around the bend, the rear of his foe was uncovered to him. Training an eight-inch gun, with one of these quarter-second shells, upon them, it was dis- patched for their destruction. It exploded in their midst, and so far as could be seen it left neither guns in position, or gunners standing. This was the last shot of the Red River expedition, sped by the hand which fired the first. Captain Phelps had not been out of his clothes, or slept, save by hasty catches, for the last three weeks.

The battered ships and exhausted crews reached Alexandria without further accidents, and Captain Phelps returned to his old command of the upper waters. As showing the character of this service, and the estimation of its chief, this incident may find place. He usually traversed his field of labor in a light, swift tin-clad, called, " The Hastings," in which he had a cabin neatly fitted up, where he kept his papers, clothes, arms, etc. On the 4th of July, about noon, as "The Hastings" was brushing along the cane-covered banks of White river, the thought of a salute came into the captain's mind, and he left his easy-chair in his cabin and stepped to the pilot-house for a word about the salute. Just at that moment two hundred rebel rifles cracked from the canes, not thirty feet distant. The fire was concentrated on the captain's cabin. His chair, drawers, and clothes were riddled, his sword shattered, and all his little properties cut to shreds. The volley was for him, by those who knew him and his habits. From where he stood he saw a hand rise in the act of ramming a cartridge. With a rifle at hand, the owner of that arm was ended in an instant. "The Hastings" ran down, and with shell routed the waylaying enemy.

In the autumn following-1864-the war on the Mississippi was substantially over, and, at his request, Captain Phelps was detailed from that service, and reported at Washington. Meantime Admiral Porter had been detailed and assigned to the Atlantic squadron, for the purpose of capturing Fort Fisher, the only thing left for the navy. He requested that Captain Phelps be assigned to the " Monadnock," a double-turret monitor. This the department could not permit, as the captain in command could not be detached. There was no other desirable position. A few months elapsed. Captain Phelps had been twenty- four years in the navy, with a record stainless ; no breath of censure or complaint had ever questioned any part of his conduct. Strong, able, cool, sagacious,

skillful, brave, daring, equal to all emergencies, he was justly regarded as among the very best officers in the American navy, a service second to none. High- minded, with the pride of his race, he had never courted influence or solicited favor. No powerful party, no clique, had ever made his fortunes an object of care, and his promotion, in view of his rare merit, was slow.

Uncomplainingly he accepted the fortune, as he met the hardships of the ser- vice, the winds and waves of the sea, the mutiny of a drunken crew, as he applied the match to the powder-train of his own ship, rather than that she become a prize to the enemy. While he was proud of the service, and silently cherished the memory of his own part in it, clearly he had discharged his full duty to his country, and might now retire with honor. His private fortune was yet to be cared for. In severing his connection with the navy he consulted valued per- sonal friends, among them Governor Dennison, then a cabinet officer, as also his boyhood friend, in the secret of his entrance into the service. 'The latter laid the matter before the secretary and the President. The secretary said that Mr. Phelps was one of the most valuable officers in the navy, with whom they should part with reluctance. He regretted that they could offer him no inducement to remain ; that the country had no claim upon him, and the department would leave it to his own choice to continue or sever the band of service. In these views the President fully concurred, and he resigned in the autumn of 1864.

A most advantageous offer was made him by the Pacific Mail Steamship Com- pany to become its general foreign agent, which he accepted. In this capacity he resided for a time at Acapulco, traversed the country between that town and Mexico; visited China in establishing the trans-Pacific line of mail steamers, took charge of the company's affairs in China and Japan, where he spent some years. He was made vice-president, when his duties took him to South America, Europe, and Asia repeatedly. In 1873 he became dissatisfied with the management of the company, both in its alleged transactions with members of Congress, and gen- erally, when he retired from its service.

Since that time he has resided in Italy for the advantage of his daughter's education. In January, 1875, he was appointed by President Grant one of the commissioners of the District of Columbia.

The vicissitudes of the war made the two officers personal friends, and the President said, that had Captain Phelps been in the United States, and not in China, upon his accession to the presidency, he should have offered him the secretaryship of the navy.

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History of Geauga and Lake Counties, Ohio, Part 30

Author: Williams Brothers Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Number of Pages: 443

Author: Williams Brothers
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 443