USA > Pennsylvania > History of the Fifteenth Pennsylvania volunteer cavalry which was recruited and known as the Anderson cavalry in the rebellion of 1861-1865; > Part 63
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of Major General A. J. Smith, commanding Sixteenth Army Corps. He immediately telegraphed to Brevet Major-General Wilson, at Macon, who replied that up to that date (19th), Bragg had not reported. I com- municated to him General Palmer's orders in the matter and he tele- graphed to General Wilson and to all commanders of cavalry and in- fantry in the States of Alabama and Mississippi and despatched by courier, orders to all whom he could not reach by telegraph, to seek and arrest General Bragg, explaining as far as I was able to give the information, the circumstances attending his capture and release by Lieutenant Phillips. I then proceeded to return, but finding by inquiry from the most prominent citizens that the road up the west side of the Coosa was exceedingly rough and at times swampy, and about fifty- five miles farther than the road I had come and my animals being very badly jaded, I was obliged to return by Wetumka and Rockford, as I had gone; and was unable to make more than twenty-four miles a day. The orders I received from Brigadier General Chrysler, command- ing the Talladega, and from Major General A. J. Smith, were very im- perative relative to the taking of animals from citizens, except in cases of great necessity, that my movements were delayed beyond the time mentioned in my dispatch, from Talladega. The country for the most part south of Talladega is very rough, hilly and poor and forage scarce, it being with much difficulty that I kept my animals regularly fed. I re- gret to have lost a complete file of papers, which I secured for your own and the General's use. I will join the Regiment as rapidly as the ex- hausted state of my animals will allow.
I am, Colonel, with respect, your obedient servant,
CHAS. E. SCHEIDE, Captain Commanding Company K. Fifteenth Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry.
General Orders HEADQUARTERS FIFTEENTH PENNA. CAVALRY, No. 8. HUNTSVILLE, Ala., May 26, 1865.
Fellow-Soldiers,-After a campaign of more than two months, during which time you have shared a prominent part in securing the grand result just attained in the suppression of the Rebellion, you have again reached your railroad communications, and the Lieutenant-Colonel commanding desires to express the great satisfaction he feels with the soldierly qualities evinced by you since the date of his assuming com- mand. During the campaign you have marched nearly 1500 miles, passed through the States of Tennessee, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, and have subsisted entirely on the country, in consequence of which you have suffered many priva- tions, but it is with pride your commanding officer can say he has yet to hear the first utterance of complaint. Wherever you have encamped you have left a name eulogized by all, whilst your performance of duty
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on the field and elsewhere has elicited nothing but praise from your Commanding General.
To the officers of the Regiment, the Lieutenant-Colonel Command- ing takes pleasure in expressing his thanks for their hearty co-operation and prompt fulfilment of orders. To First Sergeants John Burton, Com- pany E, and John K. Marshall, Company F, special praise is due for the ability shown in the management of their companies in the ab- sence of their respective commanders.
The Regiment will start in a few days for Nashville, there to be mustered out of service as soon as the proper papers can be prepared, and your commander feels assured that during the interval you will sustain the enviable reputation you have hitherto enjoyed, by the con- tinuance of the same good discipline and manly conduct.
By order of CHAS. M. BETTS, Lieutenant-Colonel Commanding.
LETTERS OF GENERAL PALMER.
The following are extracts from letters written by General Palmer to his uncle, Frank H. Jackson, with whom he corresponded during the Rebellion. All the contents of these, which refer to our regiment, or have a reference to the military life we then lived, or have historic value as showing the conditions then existing, are, by the consent of General Palmer, published.
HEADQUARTERS ANDERSON CAVALRY, SOUTH SIDE OF FRENCH BROAD RIVER, NEAR DANDRIDGE, AT JIM EVANS' FORD.
January II, 1863.
MY DEAR FRANK,-
I have not heard from you since we left Sequatchie Valley-more than a month ago-although I expect there are letters for me back in our camp. We are nearly forty miles above Knoxville, in one of the wildest (and most loyal) parts of East Tennessee, in what is called the "Muddy Creek District," where the whole power of Jefferson Davis has never been able to enforce the conscription. Nearly every young man is now in our army, while the old men and boys are armed, and consider it a sacred duty to bushwhack every rebel soldier that ventures to enter this sanctum of loyalty. The original conscripting officer being supposed to be faint-hearted, the authorities sent over here from Dandridge, about a year ago, a man named Moore, who had succeeded in enforcing the hated act elsewhere where others had failed. He came with his posse, but Muddy Creek was awake, and before the party had gotten
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very far into its wooded and stony recesses, crack! crack! from a score of rifles and shotguns hidden by groves and rocks, told them that they had counted without their host. In an instant the Provost and his clan were scattered in every direction, but not before one man was killed, the Provost dismounted and a number of horses shot. The Provost wandered around till near dark, when he came humbly to the dwelling of one of the most respectable Muddy Creekers (a regular Nimrod, who killed eight bears in the North Carolina Mountain the week before we arrived here), and besought his advice and protection. Nimrod took pity upon him, and knowing that enraged Muddy Creek would sacrifice him if found, he concealed him until after night, and then set him safely across the French Broad. Thus ended the first and last attempt to conscript in this district of Jefferson County.
There are no secessionists whatever in the Muddy Creek District, but on its outskirts there are two or three wealthy rebel citizens, with plenty of corn, fodder, hay, mutton, beef, bacon, potatoes and sorghum molasses. On the plantation of one of these, named Jim Evans, we are now encamped, and our boys. are living better than they have for months on his surplus, while our worn-down and sore-footed horses are resting after our recent hard scouts and skirmishes in a perfect surprise at the wealth of grain and "roughness" strewn three times per day before them. The old Planter is now one of the most humble specimens of humanity in this humiliated Confederacy. He reached the point of tears yesterday morning and by to-night we expect will have to be fitted in a straight-jacket. Every time he ventures out of his house, towards the camp, he comes quickly back, with some new story of the outrage and loss. His hay is vanishing, his poultry is gradually wasting away before his eyes, his straw is being used for bedding by "poor but honest sogers," and good God ! they are even burning his rails. He is now a good Union man, talks despairingly of "rebels," curses South Carolina, and cotton aristocrats, and in various other ways "crooks the pregnant hinges of the knee that thrift may follow fawning." With any of these men the loss of a fraction of their property is sufficient to swamp all the interest they have or have ever had in the establishment of a Southern Confederacy.
A little expedition that I sent out last night to Clark's Ferry, 17 miles up the French Broad, has just returned with 7 prisoners, some of whom belong to South Carolina and some to Tennessee regiments, part cavalry and part infantry.
Three nights ago we picked up eight in the same vicinity and the next day two. We have been on this side of the French Broad less than a week but in that time have picked up 25 prisoners and deserters. In the month that we have been in East Tennessee, we have taken about 40 prisoners and some deserters with our little command of about 250 men.
Every deserter that comes in now states that President Lincoln's proclamation is known among their troops and that in addition to the
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circular extracts our cavalry has distributed within their lines, their own papers have published it. A large number have already availed them- selves of the proclamation, and it will undoubtedly tend greatly to demoralize the rebel army, although I somewhat regret that any proffer has been made to them, it would be so much better to force them into the acceptance of any terms we might be willing out of our magnanimity to offer.
The situation of affairs in this department is peculiar.
Longstreet's army is at Morristown and Russellville with one division (Ransom's) at Rodgersville. He has in all about 24,000 men in addition to 6000 cavalry under General Martin. The cavalry is stationed on the north side of French Broad from Dandridge to mouth of Nolichucky.
Longstreet's army is in a terrible plight for clothing and shoes, especially the latter, and General McLaw's commanding one (of the four) divisions of his infantry, who was recently relieved by Longstreet for some misconduct at Bean's Station, and sent on to Richmond, reported to the authorities there that his division was "unfit for duty."
Our own army, however, comprising Granger's Fourth Corps with Burnside's old army, and half the Chattanooga cavalry with Burnside's mounted infantry is hardly in better fix for clothing than the rebels, although I believe that supplies are now coming in. General Grant is at Knoxville or Strawberry Plains, and I believe has resolved on an active winter campaign. I hope he has, as I believe an energetic push at this time, before Longstreet finishes the railroad bridges, connecting him with Bristol and Richmond, would ruin him. I do not like the idea of his army remaining in East Tennessee and feeding everything up this winter. Some citizens, who came into our lines to-day from Parrotts- ville, above Newport, informed me that he is building pontoons to cross the Chucky near Warrensburgh. This looks something like an intention to retreat up the French Broad into North Carolina.
I took breakfast, dinner and supper at Knoxville with General Grant. He resembles Enoch Lewis of the P. R. R. very much, has a square- built head. Would make, I should think, a good mechanician. There is nothing imposing about him in appearance but he looks practical. Hard, blunt experience has made a good practical General out of him. I also saw there General Foster. Two hundred miles of rough country roads and the Cumberland mountains in a severe winter separating his army from a depot of supplies is rather too much on the muscovite order of campaigning for him.
W. J. P.
ROSSVILLE, GA., May 5, 1864.
MY DEAR F. H. J.,-
The rear of Hooker's Corps, which has been passing our head- quarters for three or four days is going by. Butterfield's, Williams' and Geary's divisions, say 20,000 compose it, the 4th (Rousseau's) being left back to guard railroad at Nashville. Butterfield told me he had 7500 men. Geary, who stopped here this morning, said his
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division had twenty regiments averaging four hundred men. Williams' I believe is smaller than the others. He and General Knipe stopped and took a "sandwich" yesterday. Old Joe Hooker and General Sickels did the same this morning and have gone on to Gordon's Mills. General McPherson and General Logan rode over here from Lookout Valley yesterday and stopped a half hour. McPherson's troops are now follow- ing Hooker's. Old Joe said McPherson had 20,000 this morning, but General Williams told me yesterday 8000. The truth lies somewhere between the two-probably not over 10,000 coming up. Hooker and McPherson seem to be concentrating in Chickamauga Valley with their right at Gordons Mills. One of Gencral Geary's staff, Capt. Elliott, an old schoolmate of mine, told me this morning that General Hooker counted up 103,000 yesterday (with other Generals at his headquarters) to partici- pate in this movement.
General Thomas, with Sherman, Schofield and several other gen- erals, officers, and their respective staffs left Chattanooga, by railroad, for Ringgold yesterday, and Sherman now has his headquarters there. as also has Thomas. Captain Garner's squadron of our Regiment (escort)' went by here yesterday with the headquarter train for Ringgold. I do not know the plan of the campaign but I take it for granted first that Buzzard Roost and Dalton will be flanked; second that the rebels will not make a stand this side of the Oostenaula or Etowah, if there. Our progress must be very slow, after the original supply of forage and provisions that the army sets out with is exhausted. I hope and think we shall get our horses at Nashville and catch up with the front before much blood is spilled. The weather is splendid, the roads hard and dry, and getting very dusty. Some of McPherson's troops came up by railroad from Huntsville. McPherson is tall, robust, but not stout, and has an honest, good-humored, plain face with a retrousse nose. His manners are very simple, easy, and cordial. As we had no whiskey he said he preferred water. This was no doubt to make us feel at ease about it. Fighting Joe and Dan Sickles have not been very long gone. A photographer happening to be here at the time, taking some pictures of the Ross house for us, these two distinguished Generals were taken with the officers of the Anderson Cavalry. Hooker still seems to have faith in the Potomac Army. He is a very agreeable gentleman with all the rough corners and sharp projections nicely rubbed off. I was quite well pleased with Sickles. He talks like a reserved, thoughtful, private gentleman, independent in means, who has traveled considerably; does his own thinking and has no instincts that are not gentlemanly. This is how he impresses you. He has to be helped on his horse, and then screws the stump of his leg to the pommel of his saddle. Sickles comes out to ascertain the temper of the native population. If he would squat down here at the post of the United States forces, called Rossville, he would see this population in its amusing aspect. Yours,
W. J. P.
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CAMP NEAR NASHVILLE, July 10, 1864.
MY DEAR FRANK,-
I received your wrathful letter of June 29th last Tuesday, on return- ing from Springfield, a pleasant rural locality, where Lieut .- Col. Lamborn is whiling away the summer weeks with one battalion of this patient Regiment. He went up there to press horses, but found that all those fit for cavalry service had previously been run over the border into Kentucky. He informed me of this fact, which I immediately com- municated to the authorities, with a request that we should be allowed to press the horses in the "dark and bloody ground." But their mouth- piece, Brig .- General Sooy Smith, chief of staff of Sherman's army, hero of the North Mississippi expedition, informed me in reply that "Kentucky was not considered as a State in rebellion." As he was just starting for a train, I did not delay him to state that I had a week previous sent an application to Gen. Geo. H. Thomas, first representing that I could see no prospect of getting mounted here, and second, applying for authority to proceed "to Kentucky or one of the States north of the Ohio for the purpose of buying horses at the government price, or failing in that impress them." The answer that I received to this reached me before starting back from Springfield. It is-that the application has been received and forwarded to General Halleck with the request that it be granted. I expect to hear from "Old Brains" by Wednesday, which will give him two days to sleep on the proposition, but I much fear that red tape will require the answer of the Chief of the Cavalry Bureau.
W. J. P.
CAMP LOOKOUT, WAUHATCHIE, November 22, 1864.
DEAR FRANK,-
I received yours of the 16th to-day. You and I should thank our stars that we are not on picket in Lookout Valley to-night. I certainly do, that I am sitting in this comfortable tent writing to you and reading "Sheridan's ride" and the Nashville Times, instead of riding about at out posts, as your friend, Lieut. Tony Taylor, has just been doing in performance of his duty as officer of the day. He has just told me that he was two hours in riding from one vedette to another not over half a mile from the first. It is one of those black nights we are apt to remember, with a cold, blustering wind, cold enough to make a thick crust on the bottomless mud, but not quite enough to prevent you from sinking indefinitely into it. Happiness, I suppose, is only comparative, but I assure you an immense deal of quiet pleasure and contentment seems to be stored in a wall tent with a fire-place to it, on a night like this. Even your tempting proposition to "come home and eat oysters for a while" fails to have effect, as one sits toasting his toes and contrasting in his mind the outside and the inside of this comfortable house of canvas. We have had rain and mud, the great enemies of cavalry life, for three weeks. When will it end? I hope it has not interfered with the grand strategic march of Sherman, who started
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from Atlanta about the IIth with about 50,000 men, for-I do not know where. There is as much ignorance on the subject here as among the gold speculators in New York, since the Georgia Railroad is not used south of Resaca, and there has been no communication with Sherman since he started. I think, however, that there will be some oysters eaten by his men before a month, though I doubt if they will be Atlantic oysters. Montgomery and Mobile are most probably the objective points. What Beauregard will do, I do not know. I do not even know where he is. If he is going to Memphis, I suppose he will let Price's army, etc., across to reinforce him. If Sherman is really going to Mobile, Beauregard can get his army there before him from Corinth by railroad, unless Sherman can cut it with his cavalry, of which he has only a small force, under Kilpatrick, not over 3000 I suppose.
Sherman runs no particular risk in this movement because he can destroy in his rear the whole railroad system of the rebels in the south- west as he marches, and when he approaches the seaboard if unable to connect with Gordon Granger, he can draw supplies from Pensacola. I think the rebels made their grand flank movement to the Ten- nessee River under a mistaken apprehension, and that they see it now and wish they had staid where they were in Georgia. Some of their Generals would also feel as well satisfied if there had been a shade less of glorification in the speeches they made just before leaving Gadsden. Meantime "Old Pap" is taking care of the Military Division of the Mississippi, and has, I suppose, at all his posts, from Nashville down, as many men as Sherman took with him. We will hear of Sherman's movements first from the rebels, unless they should interdict all mention of him by their papers.
One hundred of my men just arrived this evening from Louisville, with horses. I have now over 600 officers and men at this camp-not counting the squadron at headquarters, which has not yet joined us. The command is entirely mounted with quite a number of surplus horses to meet emergencies or mount recruits if another invoice of these should arrive.
We have built a fencing hall and in spite of the bad weather have all our officers drilling with the foils and masks two or three hours daily. The men have a -daily drill in the broadsword exercise when the weather permits. By remembering that that extortionate rascal, our sutler, could be taxed, I raised $500 of the Salignac pay. Monsieur Sutler said he wouldn't pay the tax, whereupon we put his men and their establishment under guard. The head rogue had gone off to Nashville to buy some more goods. As there were four pretty good mules among the property. we kept the guard on, and said nothing more about it. The United States Government would give $600 for them any day. After the lapse of about ten days, there arrived at these headquarters first a letter front the chief scoundrel saying he wouldn't pay; second, his partner, after a five-minute interview, paid the bill. Of course, he didn't do it without first trying a good deal of finesse, including a proposition to deposit
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the value of the tax with the regimental treasurer as security, to be held until the matter could be decided. But I told him I supposed the mules- which were to drag his teams to Nashville after the new supply of stores-were fully worth the amount of the bill, and from his prompt action thereafter, I presume he came to the conclusion that they prob- ably were. We would give them their walking papers, but it would take some time to get another, and in the meantime the tax is running on at the rate of ten cents per month for each officer and soldier. We fixed the villain's prices for his goods by a council of administration. He signalized his entrance into the Regiment by sending up various bottles of Cincinnati wine, champagne, etc., to our heaquarters-a practice which suddenly ceased when we promptly sent them back by an orderly with our compliments and the information that we would send for what we wanted.
Kerby, my spy companion of Castle Thunder, is at Nashville, where he has ingratiated himself through his desperate impudence, every- where, and now has four clerks, who aid him in the transaction of his im- portant private affairs, which include the sutlership of the Post of Clarks- ville, a large wood contract from the Government at Nashville, and the sut- lership of a negro regiment. As General Whipple, chief of staff to General Thomas, was on Dix's staff at Fortress Monroe when Kerby operated about there, the latter recalled the circumstances, reminded Whipple of his ser- vices to the government, which Whipple knew of perfectly well, and got thereby some of the army patronage. I told General Whipple he was almost dangerously smart. He seems at all events to be too smart to lie, unless it be on a very large scale, for instance adapted to Castle Thunder, where I fear truth has been so entirely crushed to earth that she will not rise again soon.
Yours,
W. J. P.
CAMP LOOKOUT, WAUHATCHIE, Dec. 12, 1864.
MY DEAR FRANK,-
The blockade which I prophesied in my last letter to mother, from Nashville, has now lasted two weeks. I do not think it can last much longer, and I therefore write to you now, while we are.still cut off by an army of 40,000 enemies from all the rest of the world, in order that my letter may be in the post-office to go North with the first renewal of mail communication. I succeeded in getting here from Nashville with my thirty-five recruits in what I thought at the time would be, as it proved in reality, one of the last trains run. Hood's army moving northward from Columbia threw off a detachment probably of cavalry, which soon after cut the railroad between Murfreesboro and Nashville, and captured a train of colored troops with some artillery horses, as reported. The telegraph was interrupted even before I left Nashville, so that an impor- tant dispatch from General Thomas to General Steadman, who commanded the forces in and about Chattanooga, was sent by my hands, the contents
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being also communicated to me by General Thomas, so that the dispatch could be destroyed in case of necessity. Now that no harm can be done by disclosure, I may tell you what those instructions were to General Steadman, and how they came to be confided to me. Finding myself in Nashville, at a moment when I saw all decisive operations were certain to take place in that vicinity, I asked "Old Pap" if I could not bring my Regiment to Nashville. He replied that we were the only cavalry left near Chattanooga and that we could not possibly be spared. I referred to our mobility, and ventured to suggest that some command less mobile might take our place at Chattanooga; to which the General replied that it was precisely because we were so mobile that he wanted us there, and that we were equal to any two regiments he could send there. He added that in certain contingencies we might be of service on the flank and rear of the enemy, and then, after a moment's thought, said "Do you think you could take your Regiment and destroy Hood's pontoon bridge over the Tennessee at Tuscumbia?" We took a map, and on looking at it, the General said the distance through the enemy's country was too great for us to approach the bridge before being discovered in time to enable the rebels to foil the object. He did not know, either, the strength of the force left behind to guard it-although the most natural supposition was that a bridge of such possibly vast importance would not be left without a secure guard, strongly en- trenched. That evening, I met the Captain of General Hatch's escort, who had been with our cavalry that had retired the last from Florence when Hood's army crossed and advanced. He had questioned a number of prisoners, who declared that a "Division" had been left to protect the bridge. I mentioned this to General Thomas when I saw him again the next morning, whereupon he told me that he was just writing a dispatch to General Steadman, asking him whether he could take 5000 men from Chattanooga with our regiment of cavalry, and by using the railroad from Stevenson to Decatur and crossing the river, thereby relaying General Granger's pontoon, move rapidly on the south side to Tuscumbia and destroy the bridge. It was this dispatch he sent by me, with additional verbal orders directing General Steadman to prepare his troops at once for a march, to await further orders from General Thomas, unless communication was cut off by telegraph (via Cumberland Gap), and in the last event to proceed to Tuscumbia if he considered it practicable to destroy the bridge; otherwise to remain at Chattanooga until he was satisfied that a considerable force of the enemy had struck the railroad between Chattanooga and Nashville, and then to move by train with 5000 men to Cowan, on the railroad at the western foot of the Cumberland Mountains. I communicated these orders on Monday-two weeks ago yesterday-and General Steadman, deciding at once to strike for the pontoon, made his preparations for that movement with such energy that on Tuesday evening ten trains with 6000 infantry and two batteries of artillery started from Chattanooga, and reached Stevenson before morning. We were ordered to march to Bridgeport (24 miles)
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