USA > Tennessee > The Annals of the Army of Tennessee and early western history, including a chronological summary of battles and engagements in the western armies of the Confederacy > Part 10
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HE letter of General Jackson to General Dunlap is from an orig- inal kindly furnished the ANNALS by Governor Porter, who ob- tained it recently from a relative in West Tennessee, in whose family it had been preserved until now, when it appears in print for the first time. It is thoroughly Jacksonian in every line, and from it some will be disposed to trace the steps which led on to the adoption of the Pres- ident's policy in regard to nullification. In this letter he foreshadows it in the sentence, "I will meet the crisis firmly," on hearing that Mr. Calhoun was connected with the movement. It is safe to say that President Jackson would have opposed a dissolution of the Union on almost any terms, but it is evident that he regarded his success as a personal as well as national triumph.
T HROUGH inadvertance, credit was not given to the Philadel- phia Times for General Johnston's paper. The copy came in the form of a slip from him, and was forwarded to the publisher as such. without any other directions. We mention this in justice both to our- selves and to the Times. This paper has a department devoted to His- tory, and has published a great many valuable and entertaining articles from distinguished Confederate writers.
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CORRESPONDENCE.
Dr. E. L. Drake-Dear Sir :- I am glad that the work for which you have so carefully and faithfully prepared is at length fairly under way. From personal experience, I can testify to the necessity of your undertaking. Since 1872 I have read many thousand pages concern- ing the late war, which, for centuries to come, will be the great theme in American literature. The meagreness of authentic information con- verning Confederate Tennessee and Tennesseeans, is wonderful and painful. Yet Tennessee was the theatre of more and greater events than any other State, Virginia alone excepted. And Tennesseeans, in heroic gallantry and self-devotion, were second to none on either side in the long contest. The history of Confederate Tennessee is full of brilliant romance. Yet it cannot be written for want of records.
Soon after the war I refused one hundred and twelve dollars for a complete set of the Nashville Dispatch, since merged in the American. This offer came from a Boston library. New England people have always valued history, and are willing to pay for it; and hence stand at the very top of the historical world on this Western Continent. The offer was refused, because the files were kept for home investigations. In making out a list of Tennessee officers (Confederate) killed in ac- tion, or who died of wounds, this original source of history, whose conductors took pains to clip from all sources, whatever they could ind of interest to Southern readers during 1862, '63, '64, and '65, fur- wishes hardly fifty names.
No one who has not engaged in such researches can realize how very barren are the records of Confederate Tennessee. You are clearly right. The gap must be filled up from original and living sources. And that too without delay.
You ought to be eminently successful. You are a pioneer. You are the leader of a forlorn hope. If the survivors among your comrades will contribute the equivalent of what, even during these hard times, they annually expend upon tobacco, you will have amply the sinews of war. If the million of white people in Tennessee are not embraced
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in Wendell Phillips' eight millions of dunces, you will not lack apprecia- tive co-operation on all sides. For all history, of nations, communitie- and families, proves that the people or the family which does not honor the noble deeds of those who have gone before, will do none worthy of being honored by those who come after.
Inclosed please find amount due for your volume first.
Truly yours, J. BERRIEN LINDSLEY, Librarian of the Tennessee Historical Society, Nashville, Tenn.
E. L. Drake, M. D .- Dear Sir :- Inclosed please receive pos :- office money order for $2.00, in payment of my first year's subscrip- tion to your monthly. I have received its first number and will wait impatiently for the succeeding ones. I trust you will be much encour- aged in your undertaking, and that the soldiery of Tennessee, from the General to the humblest private, who have survived the civil war. will all, without exception, furnish you with their diaries, their jour- nals, their experiences, and their recollections of Confederate services. toils and victories. There will be few defeats for you to record, and then only when the enemy outnumbered greatly our gallant troops.
Knoxville, Tenn., April 3, 1878. Yours truly, J. G. M. RAMSEY.
Dr. E. L. Drake :- I thank you personally, my dear sir, for con- ceiving and undertaking this work, and know that thousands of others will, in time, do the same. I sincerely trust that you are resolved to . continue it, and will be enabled to do so.
I will try and get you some subscribers here, if I can, in a few days. or at least, by the next number.
Yours truly, ALBERT T. MCNEAL, Bolivar, Tenn., April 6, 1878.
Dr. E. L. Drake-Dear Sir :- I am glad to see you propose to pub- lish, in magazine form, THE ANNALS OF THE ARMY OF TENNESSEE, and write to place my name upon your list of subscribers, as well as the " Public Library and Historical Society," Macon, Ga. Will remit for both on receipt of first number.
Yours truly, ROBERT E. PARK, General Agent. Macon, Ga., March 1, 1878.
Dr. E. L. Drake-Dear Sir :- In looking over my old files the other . day, I came across the old Texas paper enclosed. You may find
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something of interest for your scrap-bag. I mark a little extract from General Donelson's Report of the Battle of Murfreesboro, no- ticing, in a complimentary way, Granville Lewis, Esq. This gen- tleman was seventy-five years of age. He came to my tent just be- fore the battle, and said he wanted me to furnish him a musket and cartridge-box. I said, " What for ?" He replied he was going into the fight. I said, "You are too old; but if you are determined to go, I will get you a position on General Donelson's Staff as Aid, and fur- nish a horse." I spoke to the General, who said, promptly, "I would like to have him." He bore himself so gallantly, that you observe, the General notices him handsomely.
With many wishes that your enterprise may be crowned with pecu- niary success, and, with the confident belief that you will be encour- aged by the approval and smiles of your old fellow-soldiers,
Memphis, Tenn., Feb. 23, 1878.
I am truly yours, GEO. W. WINCHESTER. .
Dr. E. L. Drake-Dear Sir :- I have your favor of the 11th inst., in- .tosing prospectus of a monthly magazine you expect to publish in Tennessee, for the purpose of gathering facts and records pertaining to the operations of our armies in the West, and requesting me to aid you by contributing information, etc. This I would cheerfully do, were I not, during my leisure moments, engaged in writing an account of the operations of the Army of Tennessee whilst under my com- mand. I therefore require all the material and facts in my posses- sion for my own use. There is, however, in this city, an association of this Army of which General Beauregard is President; it may afford you some assistance.
Wishing you great success in this laudable undertaking, I am truly yours, J. B. HOOD. New Orleans, La., Feb. 19, 1878.
My Dear Doctor :- I have been engaged all the week with my Court, and have only time now to say that I am with you heart and soul. Your friend, ALBERT S. MARKS. Winchester, Tenn., Feb. I. IS78.
Dr. E. L. Drake-Dear Sir :- May success attend you in your noble enterprise. The truth of the remark in your letter, "In a few more@years, and we will pass away, and ours will truly be a lost
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cause," strikes me forcibly. The thought makes me shudder to think how negligent we have been in vindicating our comrades who fell by our sides, and whose noble deeds of valor won the admiration of the civilized world.
Your friend, W. J. HALE.
Hartsville, Tenn., Jan. 29, 1878.
Dr. E. L. Drake-Dear Sir :- Your letter was received, as have been the circulars. Will publish a part to-morrow, and cheerfully co-operate with you in the important work. Whenever I can have time, if ever, will contribute.
Yours, S. A. CUNNINGHAM.
Chattanooga, Tenn., Feb. 16, 1878.
ANNALS & ARMY OF TENNESSEE EARLY WESTERN HISTORY.
VOL. I. { NASHVILLE, TENN., JUNE, 1878. ¿ No. 3.
VICKSBURG DURING THE SIEGE.
How the Iron Crown of the Mississippi Was Fruitlessly Defended-Thrill- ing Incidents of Life in the Beleaguered City-A Campaign of Mis- conception -- People Dwelling in Caves and Living on Air.
BY EDWARD S. GREGORY.
[THE Siege of Vicksburg, by Major Gregory, in the Philadelphia Times, is a model of graceful pen-sketching, while its tone is of a character not easily attain- able under the circumstances, where the field of censure and criticism is so invit- ing. It is a valuable contribution to important events in Western History, and will bear repeated perusals.]
0 N January 24, 1862, a fleet, bearing the united forces of Generals Grant and Sherman, descending the Mississippi from Memphis, appeared before the "Terraced City of the Hills"-the name given Vicksburg, according to local tradition, by Daniel Webster. The dis- astrous experiment made in the previous December by General Sher- man-of approaching the town on the Yazoo line-was not repeated. The troops were debouched on the west bank of the river, and began to dig a canal across the isthmus which the great bend of the river oppo- site Vicksburg makes, the original idea of which scheme of isolation had occurred to General Williams the year before. Demonstrations in other directions were not neglected, meanwhile. Nine gunboats, carrying 4,000 men, in March made a move down the Tallahatchie, but were repulsed by General Loring at Fort Pemberton. General Pemberton, in command of the Department of Mississippi, was in- duced for a while to think that the city was in no immediate danger,
VOL. I, NO. III. - 1.
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and that a large part of General Grant's army had been sent to join Rosecrans. He soon had occasion to alter his mind in this connec- tion, and the troops which he had dispatched to General Bragg, at Chattanooga, were promptly withdrawn.
A New Plan of Campaign.
Early in April a new plan of campaign was adopted by General Grant. He struck work on the canal. His new scheme was to march his troops down on the west bank of the river to some suitable point below Vicksburg, and throw them over in transports that were to pass the batteries under veil of night. Already, in March, the " Hart- ford " and "Albatross," of Farragut's Squadron, had passed the Port Hudson guns. On the night of April 16 a Federal fleet of gunboats, and three transports towing barges, ran by the batteries at Vicksburg and moored at Hard Times, La. (thirty miles, say, below the city), where the forces had arrived. On the night of the 22d six more trans- ports and barges followed. The damage done by the Confederate ar- tillerists on these two occasions summed up as follows : One transport · sunk, one burned, six barges rendered unserviceable. We shall hear more fully of these feats hereafter. The vigor of the game began when, on the 29th of April, Admiral Porter opened the guns of his ships on the Confederate intrenchments at Grand Gulf, the Thirteenth Corps (McClernand's) being held in readiness to cross over when these were silenced. At sunset the guns were still vocal, and General Grant determined to land at Bruinsburg, which was ten or twelve miles lower down. Gunboats and transports gave the batteries the slip at night in numbers sufficient to ferry over a division at a time. More than twenty vessels of different descriptions had then passed the Confederate forti- fications.
On April 30 the four divisions of McClernand's Corps crossed ; and on the Ist of May moved, and in brief time encountered the Confed- erate command of General Bowen, consisting of the brigades of Green and Tracy, four miles from Port Gibson. The Confederates were choice men and fought gallantly against great odds ; but on the next day Gen- eral Bowen was forced out of Port Gibson, and retired across the sus- pension bridge of the Bayou Pierre to Grand Gulf. His stay here was transient, seeing that his flank was almost immediately turned. On the 3d he marched to Hankinson's ferry, on the Big Black, and there met Loring and his division, sent from Jackson by Pemberton, whose head-
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quarters were at Edwards' Depot. On the 30th of April, General Sher- man, commanding the Fifteenth Corps, after a slight feint on Haines' Bluff on the Yazoo, returns to Milliken's Bend and proceeds to the main body. On the 8th the three corps met at Willow Spring, where McClernand and McPherson (commanding the Seventeenth Corps) had been waiting since the 3d. `On the same day they advance on parallel roads northeast, but the Thirteenth shortly turns off toward Edwards' Depot; while the Seventeenth, followed by the Fifteenth, keep their faces toward Jackson. The latter column, on the 12th, en- counter the single brigade of Gregg, at Raymond, and drove it away : not till after a stout resistance. McPherson then moves on Clinton-a station on the railroad ten miles west of Jackson-interposing between Vicksburg and General Joseph E. Johnston (who arrived in Jackson on the 13th and assumed command) and breaking the line of Confed- crate communications.
Prior to his departure from Tullahoma for the scene of war, General Johnston had sent an order to General Pemberton in these words: "If Grant's army crosses, unite all your forces to beat him. Success will give. you back what you abandoned to win it." One dispatch had been received from General Pemberton, bearing date the 12th, and beginning : "The enemy is apparently moving in heavy force toward Edwards' Depot, on Southern Railroad." The "moveable army " of Pemberton-consisting of the divisions of Bowen and Loring, which had come up from Grand Gulf, and Stevenson, who was detached from the garrison of Vicksburg, leaving the two divisions of Forney and M. L. Smith in loco-was now at Edwards' Depot, eighteen miles east of Vicksburg; and headquarters were at Bovina, a station some four miles west.
Johnston Arrives Too Late.
On the 13th General Johnston sent a dispatch to the War Depart- ment in these words: "I arrived this evening, finding the enemy in force between this place and General Pemberton. I am too late." These were ominous words. Through Captain Yerger he dispatched that order to General Pemberton which has been the bone of conten- tion in all the subsequent discussions on the responsibility of failure. It directed the latter to come up, if practicable, on the rear of McPher- son, at Clinton, at once. "All the strength you can quickly assemble should be brought. Time is all important." This was put into Pem- berton's hands at 7 o'clock on the morning of the 14th. He answered
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at once, signifying his purpose to obey, though he did not think his force justified attacking. But immediately he summoned a council of war, to which the question was submitted for discussion, and a majority of the major-generals present sustained the execution of the order ; others said "nay." General Pemberton concluded that he would obey the order in this wise : He would set off for Clinton, which was twelve miles east, by moving on Dillon's, which was eight miles south. By this route he might break the communications of the enemy and force him to attack. If his luck was good, he might proceed to Clinton ; if his luck was extraordinary, he might keep on forcing the enemy to attack him. This is not the exact language of any of the reports, but a legitimate inference from events. On the morning of the 15th the three divisions set out on their march, being compelled to make a tedious detour because of the dstruction by flood of a bridge over Baker's creek, which was a little east of Edwards' Depot in a southwesterly course to the Big Black river. That such was to be his mode of obeying the order, General Pemberton had written General Johnston in a note dated the 14th, at 5 P.M., which contained, how- ever, no reference to the council of war. It was part of the tragedy of errors which the whole campaign illustrated that this answer reached General Johnston before the note previously sent.
Meanwhile no grass was growing under Sherman's feet. On the 14th, Johnston, hearing that the Fifteenth Corps was twelve miles from Jackson, on the Raymond road, and that both it and McPherson were moving on Jackson, sent out one brigade to meet each corps and evacuated the city, which was promptly entered. McClernand, who had been near Edwards' Depot, having received orders to that effect, joined the main body in the neighborhood of Jackson, out of which General Johnston had marched with his little army, then 6,000 at most, toward Clinton, twenty odd miles north. Ascertaining the Fed- eral concentration, he dispatched an order to Pemberton on the same day, informing him of the situation of affairs and disposition of forces, and asking if he could not close their communications with the river, and, above all, beat them if for want of supplies they were compelled to fall back. It was part the second of this tragedy of errors that Pemberton received this communication not till after the battle of Baker's creek-too late to affect his action.
Battle of Baker's Creek.
The battle of Baker's creek happened in this wise : When General
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Johnston, on the 15th, received General Pemberton's second note of the day before, disclosing his designs on Dillon's, Johnston instantly replied that "the only mode by which we could unite was his (Pem- berton's) moving directly to Clinton and informing me (Johnston), that I might meet him there with 6,000 men." Hardly had Pemberton got well clear of Baker's creek when this order reached him. He reversed his columns and prepared to obey it promptly, and so informed Gen- eral Johnston. Just at this point a new factor appears in the shape of Grant, who had heard in Jackson of Pemberton's designs to attack him piecemeal, and who had conceived the design of reversing the opera- tions. McPherson, McClernand, Blair and Hovey were ordered on the 15th to march to Bolton's Depot, eight miles east of Edwards' Depot. Returning to Edwards' Depot, General Pemberton formed his line of battle-remaining, General Johnston contends, for five hours in front of a single Federal division, which he might have crushed. Battle was delivered by Grant on the 16th, with all his force. The Confederate resistance was spirited, but unavailing. General Pemberton lays the blame of defeat on Loring, who declined to reinforce the Confederate left. For this same inaction General Lor- ing is equally praised by Johnston. The field was lost, and Loring,. after guarding the retreat of the army arcross the creek, and seeing the bridge burned, moved out by a wide detour and joined General Johnston with his division. Next day the Federals, crossing Baker's creek on pontoon bridges, renewed the battle at the Big Black river, east of which Pemberton had stationed Bowen, while Stevenson was bivouacked on the other side. The Confederates' were disheartened and divided, and the fight soon became a flight. Eighteen Confed- erate cannon were captured. The remnant of Bowen's command was conducted from the field by Stevenson. Grant followed swiftly, and the pickets of the advance were before Vicksburg on the 18th. On the next day the investment was complete.
On the 17th, Johnston, marching his two brigades on the road from Livingston to Edwards', received Pemberton's account of events, in- cluding the council of war on the 14th and the battle at Baker's creek. The action at the river was then progressing. Hearing of the aban- donment of the Big Black, General Johnston orders Pemberton : "If Haines' Bluff is untenable, Vicksburg is of no value and cannot be held. * Evacuate Vicksburg, if not too late, retreating to the northeast." Expecting that this order was obeyed, Johnston
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marches to the northwest to meet the garrison. On the 18th he re- ceived a dispatch from Pemberton, at Vicksburg, announcing his re- treat into the intrenchments, and adding that the order of evacuation had been submitted to a council of war, and while it was holding the enemy's guns opened. "I have decided to hold Vicksburg as long as possible. I still conceive it to be the most important point in the Con- federacy." Johnson answers Pemberton to hold out. "I am trying to get together a force to help you;" and orders Gardner to evacuate Port Hudson. Before this order could be repeated, Port Hudson was invested by the whole force from Baton Rouge. Thus far the prelim- inary narrative, which has been condensed to the exclusion of many important points-among them the discussion between General John- ston and the administration as to the authority of the former over the army in Tennessee to order reinforcements from it to Mississippi. How far results were affected and responsibility fixed by the disagree- ments and that between the generals in the field, may be considered on a later page.
Inside the City.
It may well be credited that the garrison and the populace had not been indifferent while these great actions sped. That a crisis im- pended, every man and woman felt; and that the odds were greatly against us was equally evident. Still the people would not harbor the thought of defeat, and were equally unprepared for the siege. The city had been bombarded once before-an ordeal invoked by the de- fiant reply of the mayor, speaking for the citizens, when S. P. Lee de- manded their surrender after the fall of New Orleans. When, there- fore, the sudden unfolding of a ball of dense white smoke in the sky above them gave sign, on the 18th, that the enemy had arrived, the fact did not frighten the brave community, however much it may have sur- prised them. At first the depressing shadow of exclusion, with con- stant peril of death and the corrosion of anxiety and of imminent fam- ine, was relieved by the excitement of battle ; for on the 19th and 20th sharp attacks were made on the lines, which were repulsed with great slaughter of the Federal column. The novelty of the situation sus- tained the spirits of the people still longer, and their courage was never dimmed. But the sickness of hope deferred was of gradual growth, while the sordid conditions of life, made necessary by the ex- igencies and exposures which were incident to the siege, had their own sad effects of steady and hard attrition. Just how and by what distinct
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stages a "city full of stirs-a tumultuous city-a joyous city," such as Tyre of old, takes on itself the aspect of a camp or a trench, de- void of the attendants of home and pleasure, and marked by every feature of war's worst exactions and destruction, nothing short of a diary of contemporaneous experience could describe. It answers the purpose of a picture to select any period when the siege was well ad- vanced and distinctly charactered-when the life of the people had become adapted to it, and when the full consequences of such abnor- mal influences were developed.
I have spoken of the element of danger. The Federals fought the garrison in part, but the city mainly. Even the fire on the lines was not confined to them in its effects, for hardly any part of the city was outside the range of the enemy's artillery from any direction, except the south. Shot from opposite quarters might have collided above the city. But the city was a target in itself, and was hit every time. Just across the Mississippi, a few days after the lines were closed, 7, 11 and 13-inch mortars were put in position and trained directly on the homes of the people; and if any one of them was silent from that time till the white flag was raised, any longer than was necessary to cool and load it, I fail to recall the occasion. Twenty-four hours of each day these preachers of the Union made their touching remarks to the town. All night long their deadly hail of iron dropped through roofs and tore up the deserted and denuded streets. It was a feature of their practice that early in the night their favors would be addressed to one part of the city, and afterward changed so as to reach the cases of persons in other parts who had gone to bed in fancied security. Those who could forget the deadly design and properties of these mis- siles might admire every night the trail which they made across the western heavens-rising steadily and shiningly in their great parabolic curves, descending with ever-increasing swiftness, and falling with deafening shriek and explosion, hurling in many a radius their pon- derous fragments. It is believed by the expert that a mortar shell is the most demoralizing agency of war. Throughout the war the Con- federates had the same horror of them which the other side felt for masked batteries and black horse cavalry. For forty days and nights, without interval, the women and children of Vicksburg took calmly and bravely the iron storm which, in less volume and in a few minutes, turned back the victorious column of Beauregard from Pitts- burg Landing. They wreaked their worst and utmost on the town,
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