USA > Pennsylvania > The Seventh Pennsylvania veteran volunteer cavalry; its record, reminiscences and roster; with an appendix > Part 9
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Infantry 54,568 men.
Artillery 2,377 "
Cavalry 3,828 :
Aggregate 60,773 Number of field guns, 130.
ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE, GEN. MCPHERSON.
Infantry
22,437 men.
Artillery 1,404
Cavalry 624
Aggregate 24,465 " Number of field guns, 96.
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ARMY OF THE OHIO, GEN. SCHOFIELD.
Infantry 11,183 men.
Artillery
679
Cavalry 1,697
Aggregate
13,559 "
Number of field guns, 28.
"These figures," Sherman says in his Memoirs, "do not embrace the cavalry divisions which were still incomplete, viz: of Gen. Stoneman, at Lexing- ton, Kentucky, and of Gen. Garrard, at Columbia, Tennessee, who were then rapidly collecting horses, and joined us in the early stage of the campaign. Gen. Stoneman, having a division of about four thou- sand men and horses, was attached to Schofield's Army of the Ohio. Gen. Garrard's division of about four thousand five hundred men and horses, was attached to Gen. Thomas's command; and he had another irregular division of cavalry, commanded by Brigadier General E. McCook. There was also a small brigade of cavalry, belonging to the Army of the Cumberland, attached temporarily to the Army of the Tennessee, which was commanded by Brigadier General Judson Kilpatrick. These eav- alry commands changed constantly in strength and numbers, and were generally used on the extreme flanks, or for some special detached service, as will be hereinafter related." In detailing his arrange- ments to Gen. Grant, he says: "McPherson has no cavalry, but I have taken one of Thomas's divisions, viz: Garrard's, six thousand strong, which is now at Columbia, mounting, equipping and preparing. I design this division to operate on MePherson's right, rear or front, according as the enemy appears." He states frankly his intention not to spare this arm of his command, and its experience during the campaign amply demonstrates the verity of his de- claration.
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With such an array of force a general like Sher- man could go anywhere and do anything, but the great question remained, how was such an army to be kept supplied? This was the most important issue involved, and it will be interesting for all fu- ture time to see how it was solved. In his Memoirs he says: "The great question of the campaign was one of supplies. Nashville, our chief depot, was it- self partially in a hostile country, and even the routes of supply from Louisville to Nashville, by. rail, and by way of the Cumberland River, had to be guarded. Chattanooga (our starting point) was one hundred and thirty-six miles in front of Nash- ville, and every foot of the way, especially the many bridges, trestles and culverts, had to be strongly guarded against the acts of a local hostile popula- tion and of the enemy's cavalry. Then, of course, as we advanced into Georgia, it was manifest that we should have to repair the railroad, use it, and guard it likewise."
The general found that the railroad south of Nashville, as then equipped and worked, was only feeding the army from day to day, that no surplus supplies were being accumulated. To remedy this, he says, he issued an order limiting the use of the railroad cars to transporting only the essential arti- cles of food, ammunition and supplies for the army proper, forbidding any issues to citizens, and cut- ting off all civil traffic; requiring the commanders of posts within thirty miles of Nashville to haul out their own stores in wagons; requiring all troops destined for the front to march, and all beef cattle to be driven on their own legs. This relieved the pressure to some extent, but it was still found im- possible to accumulate a reserve supply at Chatta- nooga. Taking all contingencies into consideration, and estimating the men to be supplied at one hun- dred thousand, and the animals at thirty-five thou- sand, the general and his chief quartermaster and chief commissary decided that it would require one
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hundred and thirty cars of ten tons each, to reach Chattanooga daily, to be reasonably certain of an adequate supply.
The chief quartermaster reported that he had not nearly the number of cars and locomotives required, but Sherman was not the man to be halted by a little thing like that, and found a remedy in his own peculiar way. He instructed that officer to hold on to all trains that arrived at Nashville from Louisville, and to allow none to go back until all that were needed were secured. Very naturally, the officers of the Louisville and Nashville objected to this arrangement, but they were placated by being authorized to hold on to cars and locomotives arriv- ing at Louisville from the North until their deficien- cy was supplied. Thus by "robbing Peter to pay. Paul" the transportation needed was secured; and by limiting the wagons composing the supply trains to carrying only food, ammunition and clothing, and but five pounds of grain per animal per day- trusting to luck to supplement this and keep them alive by foraging, the preparations were completed. Everything outside of absolute necessaries were eliminated from that army. Sherman says:
"I made the strictest possible orders in relation to wagons, and all species of incumbrances and im- pediments whatever. Each officer and soldier was required to carry on his horse or person food and clothing enough for five days. * * * Georgia has a million of inhabitants. If they can live, we should not starve," he writes to Grant, and adds: "I will inspire my command, if successful, with the feeling that beef and salt are all that is absolutely neces- sary to life, and that parched corn once fed General Jackson's army on that very ground."
Thus composed, thus equipped, and thus sup- plied, the great army moved forward to its task on the 7th of May, and the narrative having epitomized the arrangements completed for the campaign, re-
MAJ, C. C. DAVIS.
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turns to the marches and movements, the dangers and duties, the services and sufferings, of that por- tion of it to which the Seventh Pennsylvania was attached.
ON THE WAY TO ATLANTA.
On the first of May the division, in compliance with orders, moved forward to join the advance. The weather was pleasant, the command in excellent con- dition, and the route lay through a beautifully pic- turesque region. Proceeding over the ground where the armies of Rosecrans and Bragg had marched and fought the preceding summer, it cross- ed the Tennessee river on the 6th, and the next day began the ascent of the stupendous and broken moun- tain ranges here crowded together in picturesque sublimity. First to be climbed was the great Look- out, and Vale thus very accurately describes the escalade :
"After crossing the Tennessee, we wended our slow, weary way up the steep sides of the lofty Look- out, until, when about thirty-six hundred feet above the river, we came to the precipitous and often over- hanging 'palisades,' extending perpendicularly three hundred feet to the summit above us; then turning sharply to the right passed for nearly two miles along the base of the high, solid, granite wall, when, coming to what appeared to be a well-used footpath up a long winding stairway of high rock steps we turned sharply to the left, and, dismounting. scrambled to the top, pulling our horses up after us. The wagons and artillery had to be hauled, pushed, carried and lifted up by hand. It took nearly an hour to get a man and horse, and about three hours to get a wagon or piece of artillery up."
Arrived on the summit the scene that presented itself to the view was indescribably grand. Por- tions of five States were visible, their convergence
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locked in the embrace of range after range of gigan- tic mountains, through which, four thousand feet below, the silvery Tennessee, festooned on either side by glistening streams, wound its way. But there was no time to be lost in worshipping at the shrine of nature's beauty and grandeur, and the di- vision, after a brief halt, descended and bivouacked for the night in Lookout valley.
The "front," which meant the main army, was reached on the 11th, and then "the pienie was over," as the men expressed it, and work for the cavalry, began. Moving on the extreme right the division had halted for the night, and was making itself as comfortable as possible in a drenching rain, when an order came for it to move to the head of Snake Creek Gap and hold that position while the army moved through it. The march was in impenetrable darkness, the rain pouring down, but somehow the place to be held was reached about midnight. The water on the ground where the Seventh was halted was up to the horses' knees, and most of the men re- mained mounted until day dawned. Then the rain ceased, and on the sloping hillsides places could be found where earth and vegetation were merely drenched-not submerged-and here the cavalry re- mained for twenty-four hours.
The passage by a flank movement of the Army of the Cumberland through Snake Creek Gap was a grand spectacle as seen from the position held by the cavalry. The great army of sixty thousand men be- gan its movement through the Gap, and down the valley, at sunrise, and all day, in solid column, it moved by. As it proceeded, the wagons attached to brigades and divisions were moved out of the march- ing column, and halted in the fields to the right and left of the road. These wagons, numbering hun- dreds, dotted the fields for miles, their white covers gleaming in the sunlight; and when night descend-
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ed, hundreds of camp fires were started, filling the valley with glowing stars.
On the 12th a detachment of two hundred men of the Seventh, under Capt. Vale, had a skirmish with a Confederate regiment on the Rome road, easily re- pulsing them. Two days later the First Brigade ad- vanced toward Rome, and encountered the enemy in considerable force at Armuchy Creek. A spirited en- gagement followed, in which the Seventh bore a prominent part, resulting in the repulse of the ene- my with a loss of one officer and nine men killed and six captured. Pressing forward, the brigade encountered more determined resistance, and it be- coming evident that the place was held by a large infantry and artillery force, in addition to the cav- alry which had been encountered, the Union troops fell back and held position at the bridge for the night. Next morning Capt. Garrett led a scout across the bridge, and encountered and drove off a Confederate picket, inflicting a loss of one man killed and several wounded.
While the cavalry was thus operating on the right, the main army, advancing along the railroad, had, by the flank movement through Snake Creek Gap, compelled Johnston to abandon his entrench- ed positions at Buzard's Roost and Dalton, and had defeated his army at Resaca in sanguinary engage- ments on the 14th, 15th and 16th. Johnston was thus compelled to fall back to a new position.
Constant movement through a rough, wooded country told upon the cavalry, and the strength of the division diminished rapidly. It was impossible to find sufficient food for the horses; what little for- age the country contained was swept away by the mounted forces of the enemy; and, as a result, in a month's time the strength of the brigade was reduced fifty per cent. Still it had to perform its duties, and it evinced no indication of weakness. Pushing for- ward, on MePherson's right, a force of the enemy's
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cavalry was encountered on the Villa Rica road on the 26th. Detachments of the Fourth Michigan and Seventh Pennsylvania were sent forward to attack them. This they did effectively, driving them, with loss, into the line of Confederate entrenchments at Dallas. In this affair the Seventh had two men wounded.
On the morning of the 27th Capt. Vale, of the Seventh, in charge of the picket line, reported a vig- orous attack on the outposts. Col. Sipes was or- dered forward with his regiment to his support, and forming on the picket line, was soon actively en- gaged with Ferguson's brigade. This led to an act- ive fight, during which reinforcements were sent to Minty with orders from MePserson to gain posses- sion of the Dallas and Villa Rica road and attack the enemy vigorously. Quite an engagement fol- lowed, during which the Seventh and the Fourth Michigan charged the enemy, and drove them back to their entrenchments. The Seventh Pennsylvania was placed in position to hold an important road, intersecting the road for which the forces were con- tending, and fortifications were extemporized to en- able them to do this; the cavalry being reinforced by the Ninety-eighth Illinois Infantry and the Seventy- second Indiana Infantry. The Confederates re- ceived reinforcements also, and attacked vigorously the positions of the Union soldiers, but their efforts were futile; the brigade, with its supporting rein- forcements, repelled them all, and the enemy finally retired before night set in. In this encounter the Seventh lost three men killed and eleven wounded. The other losses were one man killed, two wounded in the Fourth Michigan, and three wounded in the Seventy-second Indiana. Vale says: "Among the wounded was Corporal Edward M. Beck, of Com- pany H, Seventh Pennsylvania, mortally shot through the body. In the evening, shortly before he died, addressing his captain, who was with him, he
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said : 'Captain, good bye; write home and tell mother she has given one boy to save the Union.' "
On the 28th the brigade was placed in juxtapo- sition to McPherson's right, and a portion of it was put on duty in the entrenchments fronting the ene- my's line at Dallas. Here it remained for five days, doing the same duty as the infantry, the horses of the dismounted men being in charge of a detachment about a mile in the rear. "During these days," says Vale, "the army had by a succession of daring movements and hard-fought battles, completely turned the rebels out of their fortified position at Alatona Pass, * and Sherman now threatened to cut Johnston off from his line of retreat by seiz- ing the bridge over the Chattahoochee. To prevent this, Johnston hastily marched, on the night of June 1, and took position on Kenesaw and Lost Moun- tains."
McPherson continuing his movement to the left, and the entrenchments on the right being aban- doned, the men of the First Cavalry Brigade re- gained their horses, and on the 2nd of June moved to the west end of Alatona Pass, where they re- mained, picketing and scouting, until the 8th of June. Here Col. Sipes was ordered to report at the reserve post, Columbia, Tennessee, for duty, being pronounced by the surgeons unfit for field service. And here this story of the Seventh Pennsylvania must halt for the purpose of bringing forward some details which are not recorded in works of history.
In advancing toward Dallas the Seventh, which was in the front of the brigade, came to a marshy bottom, densely covered with bushes, vines and large trees. Through this marsh meandered a nar- row but deep stream, crossed frequently by a coun- try road leading into Dallas. Where such crossings occurred bridges were built by placing large logs from bank to bank and "corduroying" these with poles laid side by side. Lt. Brandt, in command of
-
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Company M, was the advance guard. Following the road, he crossed one of these bridges and entered the thicket. As soon as this was done concealed ene- mies opened fire upon him. He at once retired and reported to Col. Sipes the presence of the enemy. Night was approaching, and orders were given for the bridge to be guarded and the regiment to halt and remain where it was until the army, which was known to be moving forward, came up. This did not occur until the following morning, and all that night the Seventh simply waited-no fires were lighted, no forage could be had, no sleep indulged in. At sunrise Gen. Hooker came up at the head of his corps. Seeing Brandt and his guard at the bridge he called out, "What are you doing here?"
"Picketing the bridge. The enemy are in the woods on the other side."
"O, you cavalry are always in a fright! There isn't a rebel within five miles of here."
And without advancing skirmishers, or taking any precautions whatever, he marched his column into the thicket. Then the music began! Before he had advanced a quarter of a mile the enemy opened fire, and by the time he succeeded in with- drawing, many of his men were killed or wounded.
Here the contending armies met and en- trenched themselves. Then, facing each other with- in easy rifle range, they fought for days. In a diary kept by a prominent officer of the cavalry, who visit- ed the field five months after the engagement, the contest is thus described :
"We are encamped on the battlefield of New Hope Church. The engagement took place on the 26th of last May. between Hooker's corps and the enemy. Between the two lines of works, the firing was the hottest and most destructive I ever saw, for nearly every tree is killed by bullets alone. In one tree I counted one hundred and fifty-seven bullet
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holes; in another one hundred and thirty-three, and in a third one hundred and one; in the first tree one hundred and thirty holes are within six feet of the ground. From some small trees every branch is swept, and the trunk remaining looks about like a broom. Bullets and grape shot can be picked up by the handful."
The entrenchments, so frequently mentioned, were a distinguishing feature of the Atlanta cam- paign, just as the campaign itself was, in some re- spects, peculiar. Johnston knew the route by which Sherman must advance, and chose, at his pleasure, the places he would defend. These he fortified at his leisure. When Sherman's army ran against the enemy, they knew that a line of defensive as well as offensive works were before them, and the sol- diers at once threw up covers for themselves. Every command did its own engineering and pioneering. Where they were halted by coming in contact with the foe was the position to be held until their oppo- nents were dislodged, and they knew just what was required.
Sherman, in his Memoirs, describes these forti- fications as follows: "The enemy and ourselves used the same form of rifle-trench, varied according to the nature of the ground, viz: The trees and bushes were cut away for a hundred yards or more in front serving as an abatis or entanglement; the parapets varied from four to six feet high, the dirt taken from the ditch outside and from a covered way in- side, and this parapet was surmounted by a "head- log" composed of the trunk of a tree from twelve to twenty inches at the base, lying along the interior crest of the parapet and resting in notches cut in other trunks which extended back, forming an in- clined plane, in case the head-log should be knocked inward by a cannon shot." He says that, "during the campaign hundreds if not thousands of miles of similar entrenchments were built by both armies,
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and as a rule whichever party attacked one of them got the worst of it."
It may be asked what cavalry had to do with earth-works? And the answer is that they were compelled, by the exigencies of the service, at times to help make them and to help defend them. In fact there was hardly any limit to the duties the men on horseback had to perform. They were scouts and explorers; they were messengers and es- corts; they were train-guards and foragers; and as Dr. Johnson in his dictionary defined "Dragoons," they "fought indifferently on foot or on horseback."
Mention has been made of the fight on the Villa Rica road, and some of the episodes connected with that engagement are interesting. While the brigade was bivouacked near this road an officer of the Seventh, probably enlightened by a contraband, dis- covered a crib full of corn. This was a find to ex. ult over, for it meant probably the salvation of fam- ishing horses. Without spreading the news a de- tachment started in the early morning to gather in the treasure. The colonel, learning of this, mounted his horse and followed them. He found the men dismounted awaiting their turn to go forward and fill their forage sacks. Ordering them to mount at once, he proceeded on until the head of the column was reached, busy handing out the corn at the crib. By this time the detachment was in condition to move, but before it could do so it was attacked, front and flank, by an overwhelming force of the enemy. Falling back as rapidly as was possible with- out breaking into a rout. the command reached the place of bivouac of the brigade, pressed all the way by the enemy, losing three men killed and several wounded. The corn had cost entirely too much, for very little of it was secured.
Among the soldiers killed that day was a young Irishman who had, for a time, been orderly for Gen.
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Stanley when he commanded the cavalry. He was shot through the heart, and as he lay dead he ap- peared to be peacefully sleeping. The general came to see him before his comrades laid him in his lone- ly grave, and as he stood by the quiet body a tear rolled down his cheek. Turning away to hide his emotion, he murmured "Pat was a perfect soldier."
One of the men of the Seventh-his name can- not be recalled now-was on guard, dismounted, in the rather dense wood which surrounded the posi- tion occupied by the brigade on the east and south. In the excitement of the contests of the day, and the hurried movements of the command, this sen- tinel was not relieved, and he remained on his post, solitary and alone in the woods, for some thirty hours. Being missed, he was hunted for and found, hungry, thirsty and weary, but without a word of complaint, knowing, as he said, that his suffering was acci- dental.
When the brigade moved from the position it had occupied for a day or two, Col. Sipes was left, with the Seventh and the Third Ohio Cavalry, to hold the Villa Rica road until the infantry had short- ened their line by withdrawing from the entrench- ments on the right, when he was to close up on the flank of the new position. To do this the Seventh was dismounted and placed behind a fence cover- ing the Villa Rica road, and the Ohio regiment was held in position in a woods to the rear, ready to move on the enemy should any appear. An aban- doned field, covered by a dense growth of bushes and briars, extended for some distance on the side of the road opposite the Union troops. This field had been swept by a scouting party commanded by Captain Schaeffer. Immediately facing the road by which the cavalry had advanced, was a charac- teristic log house, that had been the Villa Rica post office, but then seemed deserted-the board shutters, which it had instead of windows, being all tightly
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closed. While things were in the condition stated, and a quiet anxiety pervaded, Col. Sipes, who was mounted and in the road about a hundred yards from the house, saw one of the shutters partly opened. Thinking there was a chance to obtain some information, he rode forward, when a woman inside the house motioned him back, and as he ap- proached nearer, exclaimed in a stage whisper, "Go back for God's sake! You will be killed!" Just then, in the old field mentioned, three men rose up and aimed their rifles at the officer on horseback. It seemed impossible that these guerillas, for such they were, could miss their mark, and all who wit- nessed the scene were convinced that the career of one soldier was about to end. They fired as the colonel sat still upon his horse, and missed him! Instantly some of the dismounted men rushed for them, but they disappeared in the jungle and could not be found. Some time after, this incident was mentioned to a citizen of Georgia, and surprise ex- pressed that the three guerillas made such a poor show of marksmanship. He replied : "It only goes to prove how difficult it is to shoot a man. No doubt any one of those fellows could have shot the head off a turkey at seventy-five yards."
In the afternoon, the change in line having been effected, the detachment holding the Villa Rica road closed in on the right of MePherson; and having nothing just then to do, and being tired out by long hours of duty in the heat and dust, stretched itself along a little brook that came dancing down through an uncultivated field in which stood an old cotton gin. The course of this brook was lined with a growth of trees, and beside it spread strips of soft grass, all wooing the weary to rest. And rest the men and horses did, most of them sinking into slum- ber. Suddenly a fiendish yell filled the air, and men and horses started with fright. Before they could control their nerves another yell broke upon
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the air, and leaves and twigs rained down from the the trees. Then the panic was explained. The Con- federates had placed a battery on a hill a mile away, from which they could see a Union battery in the field near the old gin. Opening fire on this, the course of their shells was through the treetops along the little brook. Hence the shrieks and the fright. The sylvan retreat had lost its charms, and the Sev- enth moved to another position.
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