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 20
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J. G. Aydelott, Tullahoma, Tenn.
E. S. Sims, Murfreesboro, Tenn.
J. D. Martin, Gallatin, Tenn.
Col. W. J. Hale, Hartsville, Tenn.
Dr. W. H. Robertson, Mulberry, Tenn. Thos. Hunter, McMinnville, Tenn. P. B. Faison, Lagrange, Texas.
THE
ANNALS ARMY OF TENNESSEE
EARLY WESTERN HISTORY.
VOL. I. & NASHVILLE, TENN., AUGUST, 1878. ¿ No. 5.
NOTES OF GENERAL E. KIRBY SMITH'S KENTUCKY CAMPAIGN.
The Turning of Cumberland Gap.
B Y the middle of August, 1862, the Federal forces in East Tennes- see, under Brigadier-General G. W. Morgan, had been pushed back into their fortifications at Cumberland Gap, by the divisions of Generals Stephenson and Heth, after a sharp fight at Tazewell. The place was impregnable to an assault, and it became necessary to turn it. Five brigades of infantry were selected for this work, and assem- bled in the neighborhood of Wilson's Gap, a mere depression in the chain to the west, through which ran a narrow, difficult road, hardly practicable for any but the lightest vehicle, owing to its acclivity. The troops composing this column of invasion consisted of the bri- gades of Cleburne, Preston Smith, Ector, Churchill and Reynolds ; several batteries (Douglass', from Texas, being the only one remem- bered by name) ; and Starnes' and Scott's battalions of cavalry, with two mountain howitzers. The vicinity of this gap was reached by noon on August -, and a brigade thrown out on the road toward Cumberland Gap to . cover the design, while the rest halted and cooked rations, waiting for night to hide the contemplated movement. The way was ascertained to be clear, the Federal commander having made no disposition to defend or obstruct it. In fact, the Federal authorities seemed to have made no provision whatever against a pos- sible invasion from this quarter, all eyes being centered on the armies of Buell and Bragg. As the shades of evening began to darken the
VOL. I, NO. V .- I.
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THE ANNALS OF THE ARMY OF TENNESSEE
eastern slope of the mountain, the brigades of Cleburne, Presto: Smith, Ector and Churchill filed to the left on a dim road leading in: the dark forest which stretched unbroken from base to summit, while Reynolds marched as convoy to the artillery and the wagon-train :. seeking a more practicable route through Big Creek Gap some di- tance to the westward. An ambulance to each regiment and tw pieces of horse artillery went with the main column. The road was winding, narrow and steep; not particularly rugged, though a quantity of loose stones abounded in the way, and rolled annoyingly under the feet of horsemen and footmen. These stones were partly provocative of a wild, but ludicrous, stampede, so liable to overtake troops march. ing at night, and especially in the enemy's country. The head of the column had reached high up on the mountain-side, when, at a steep: and difficult part of the road, an ambulance stalled and backed inte the head of a regiment which happened to be well closed up. These men gave back rather hastily upon those below, with a loud shuffling of feet among the loose stones, and, like a flash, the movement prop: gated itself throughout the entire length of the column. An avalanche. . thundering down the Alps, could not have produced a greater tumul: than that caused by this backward movement, which first gave out a rumbling in the distance, and the next instant a torrent of mingled sounds, bearing fast and furious down the dark mountain-side. Men fell over each other, and were trampled under foot, but it was the horsemen who raised a din like bedlam turned loose. The brutes par- took of the fright like the men, and one of them carried his rider : headlong race as far as the foot of the mountain. The roar was ap- palling, and, coming without prelude or announcement, men's reason- took flight and their legs followed suit, as the readiest way out of the difficulty. That some dreadful disaster had overtaken the head of the column, was accepted and acted upon as soon as the sound of the tt :- mult above could convey itself to those in the rear, and the acousti properties of the place and season fearfully intensified the effect. Order was at length restored, and the march .resumed, to be inter- rupted a few minutes later by a similar panic on a reduced scale, b ::: bayonets were fixed in parts of the line, and these held the rout .:: bay. Quiet was quickly restored this time, and in a few minutes ne a man could be found who had been in the least alarmed. The affa: was full of ridiculous incidents, which were the subject of jocul ..: allusion for the rest of the night and for many a day after. In truth.
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a field officer, whose horse ran away with him, was accused of throw- ing very little weight on the bit.
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The rear of the column mounted the summit at sunrise, and, casting a backward glance at the splendid panorama of the valley and Wal- dron's ridge in the distance, glided on without halting, the tail of the huge serpent, whose head was far down the mountain-side, stealing its way into Kentucky. The objective point was Barboursville, Ky., and this was reached in several days, the small Federal force in possession giving it up almost without a struggle to the cavalry, leaving behind a small quantity of much-needed stores. This body retreated back toward Cumberland Gap, and was thus fortunately inclosed ; other- wise, it might have spread the alarm to Louisville and Cincinnati, and opened the eyes of the other side to the threatened danger, that a week or so later became a reality of disaster and hasty retreat to the Ohio river. The column of infantry, dropping from the clouds, passed through the place without halting, and, filing to the right in pursuit, sealed, in an hour's march, this outlet of the Federal commander's escape from the Gap, leaving him a way only along the mountain range where wagons and artillery could pass only with the greatest difficulty and delay. An inspection of a map without an appended statement would convey to the reader very little idea of the difficulties of this march or the importance of its results. It was an exceedingly bold movement, dependent for its success upon rapidity of execution and effect upon the mind of General Morgan, the commander of the Federal forces in this region. He might decide to leave a small garri- son at the Gap, which he could safely do, and march with the rest of his force against the isolated flanking column, and, if fortune should favor him, the Confederate plan of invasion from this quarter was practically at end; or he might elect to stand a siege, and this would have given him the winning card in this game of hazards, provided he had two months' supply of food, for the place could have defied the whole of Bragg's army. In one event, General Smith would have been compelled to retreat across the mountain. In the other, he would have been at liberty to push forward into Kentucky, which was, in fact, the part he had to play in the co-operative plan of invasion. In this case. "descensus Averni facilis," etc. : the getting in would have been easy enough, but the getting back would have been a dif- ferent matter, with the outlet blocked by a hostile force impregnably intrenched across the way. However, the latter issue was left to
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chance, as, according to our recollection of the succession of events, General Smith had begun his forward movement on Richmond, Ky., before he ascertained that General Morgan had settled all such possi- bilities by abandoning his stronghold, and was endeavoring to save his army by a long and difficult retreat through the wilds of Eastern Ken- tucky.
But this dissertation on strategy has led us to leave out a part of the story of our flanking movement, which is worth narrating as part of its res gestae and the cause of much discussion at the time. For instance, we parted with our " spider train " at Wilson's Gap, and it was nearly a week before we saw it again. Four days' rations in the haversacks will last most soldiers scant two, though we knew men who could carry butter until it got rancid and biscuits until they were mouldy ; but C. B. R., of the Second Tennessee, was not one of them. So the cry for bread, faintly heard on the morning of the third day, began to be loudly expressed toward evening. A great many had eaten their last biscuit, and were now faring on a canteen of water and a pipe of tobacco. It was on this expedition that Colonel B. J. Hill, of the Thirty-fifth Tennessee, famous as " Old Ben," afterward Brigadier- General Hill, won a brow full of laurels in the fields of imagination and invention. The march was hot and tiresome, over rugged roads and beyond the pale of civilization, with nothing on the way-side to interest, and rarely the presence of a native of whom to ask questions as to distances, water supply ahead, and whether he "lived fur about here.". As a consequence, the column became sullen and growled at every thing. At this stage some one asked Colonel Hill when the wagons would be up with the rations. "Old Ben" interpreted the situation at once, and guaged the column's credulity to a fraction, as he earnestly and gravely replied : "We will camp about three miles ahead at a big spring, and the wagons will meet us there to-night with plenty of rations." The statement was swallowed with almost as much relish as the rations could have been (we are always on the negative of Anticipation z's. Possession), and the good news ran down the line with loud expressions of gratification. Under the animating prospect ahead, the march was quickened and the men made about eight miles, to encamp upon a dry creek, with no wagons in sight and no spring of any kind vis- ible; a few puddles of brackish water, that had come off of coal strata, substituting the Colonel's " big spring." The next day, at the first op- portunity, our purveyor of good news was taxed as to the big ellipsis
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AND EARLY WESTERN HISTORY.
between his promise and the fruition, but he instantly replied, in a tone of indignation, that " the wagons would have come up, but the cussed fools took the wrong road, and will not be up now until along toward night." That sounded reasonable enough, and "Old Ben" lost nothing in reputation this time, but the absent commissaries cer- tainly felt their ears burn with the compliments lavished upon their performances. Night came again, and again brought no wagons. Water, a few roasting ears and tobacco made invigorating diet for the next day's work. "Old Ben's" reputation for veracity that night wasn't worth a continental copper ; and when, the next day, the usual question was put to him, touching the want of sequence between prom- ise and performance, he frankly admitted that the wagons did not come up as they ought to have done, but added " that he intended to cut off a commissary's head as soon as he could get hold of him." Fifty of his hearers volunteered to help him, and this proposed tender of a commissary's head in a charger appeased the multitude for a while and diverted the wrath from himself. In the meantime, Barboursville had been reached, where some salt had been captured, and the apple- orchards in the vicinity made some addition to the ration. C. S. A. now had a new interpretation, which a wag insisted meant "corn, salt and apples." At last, on the sixth or seventh day, the wagons did actually arrive, but not in time to save "Old Ben's" reputation. However, he was at home in any field of invention, and proved him- self equal to all of those emergencies which impose the telling of one fib to get out of another, and the last was generally the biggest. One day he would report that Bragg had whipped Buell and captured fifty pieces of artillery ; another, it was one of Stonewall Jackson's "God- given victories." It is just to say that these stories were always told off-hand, in response to annoying inquiries, and with good effect, whether accepted or not, for the men came, in time, to asking him the news just to hear him tell a "big one." Bravest of the brave was he, and true as the truest of the sons of the South; he will yet appear on these pages in a role that none can gainsay or cavil at.
Well, we have gotten the wagons up again and "Old Ben " intro- duced to the reader, if he needed an introduction.
We left the column pushing the Barboursville forces back toward the Gap. A few smart Alecks-among them, a surgeon or two-had drop- ped out at Barboursville to pick the bones about the captured camp, and, as these came on an hour or too later, a lot of gentlemen in blue
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THE ANNALS OF THE ARMY OF TENNESSEE
jeans appeared on the bluff overlooking the road and opened fire on them with their squirrel rifles; but, fortunately for the bone-pickers, no damage was done. On this news being reported in camp, a line of sharpshooters, under Lieutenant O'Neal, was thrown out, and one of these "minute men of '61" was killed and several captured. The · man killed was brought down at long-taw, just as he was in the act of escaping over the brow of a ridge. On the next day, a long line of skirmishers swept the hills in different directions, and Home Guard patriotism played out as an unprofitable enterprise. Churchill's Di- vision of Texans and Arkansians was pushed forward into the gorge leading up to the Gap, where it was feebly attacked, and the place was thus invested on two sides. The display of so much force, blocking up his line of communications, decided General Morgan to destroy his material and attempt the arduous task of forcing his way through the mountains to the Ohio river, which, by the way, he succeeded in ac- complishing, and, with much gratulation, compared the performance to the "Retreat of the Ten Thousand."
Over Big Hill to Richmond.
In past due time, as we have related, the wagons and artillery came up and rations were cooked for the march upon Richmond. (In ex- tenuation of any errors of statement the writer may commit, and the absence from this record of dates and specific details of movements. he will say that he has no official data whatever at command, and is trusting solely to his memory of events occurring nearly sixteen years ago.) Reynolds' Brigade was left to cover the movement from the rear, while the other four brigades, under General Kirby Smith. pushed rapidly forward through the village of London, on the main route to Central Kentucky. His movement, though bold and appar- ently hazardous, was carried out with consummate nerve and skil! : there was no miscarriage of plan at any point, from lingering on the way or hesitation of purpose when the hour of action arrived. He took the offensive at the start, and never lost the advantage it gave him of dictating the course of events, with full confidence in its final working out. In this campaign he exhibited all the qualities of a suc. cessful commander, particularly in respect to nerve and judgment. . few days' dallying here or a few hours' indecision there might have turned the tide against him. As it was, he made opportunities. in- stead of waiting for them, and cut gordian knots as he came to them.
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AND EARLY WESTERN HISTORY.
To this end, when he reached Big Hill, he determined to cross it at night without a halt, rather than be caught on its waterless stretch by hostile opposition. Besides, time was an important element in pre- venting a concentration of the enemy's forces. It should have been said that a reconnoisance had been made some days before by Starnes and Scott, and a sharp battle had been fought on the farther slope of this mountain, in which the enemy's cavalry had been badly worsted. On their report, it was found necessary to fill the canteens with water before starting, as none could be obtained on the route until the de- scent was reached on the other side. The ascent began in the after- noon, and the march was kept up until far in the night. The road was filled with a light ash-colored dust to the depth of several inches, which was very trying on the throat and lungs; but the cheery songs of the men told that they were in the best of spirits, and ready for any adventure that might betide them in the " Blue Grass." The descent of the mountain was made the next day, through the late battle-ground of the cavalry, which had now become quite offensive from the num- ber of dead horses which strewed the field. Line of battle was formed at one time among the foot-hills, in anticipation of an engage- ment, but was soon broken into column again and the march resumed. We had now reached the borders of a land full of fat things, into which all seemed eager to rush as to a revel, and exchange the barrenness of foodless mountains for the abundance of fertile plains.
The Night Before the Battle.
The night before the battle was spent on arms a few miles from the field. It was intended to give the troops the benefit of a rest in camp after their arduous march, but the precaution was first taken of march- ing each regiment to a chosen line, so that positions could be taken, if necessary, during the night, without delay or confusion. Late in the afternoon, our cavalry advance was driven back by a body of the enemy, with the loss of a mountain howitzer. These were so much elated by their success, that a regiment of cavalry (Metcalfe's) started out in pursuit, and came thundering down the pike with loud yells, just as the regiments of infantry alluded to above were returning to camp for the night. Fortunately, darkness had come on, and their presence on the ground was not discovered by the enemy. General Cleburne was still on his horse, superintending the disposition of his brigade, when the tumult at the front reached his ear, and he at once
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ordered Colonel Butler, of the Second Tennessee, who was nearest him, to take his regiment back to its position. The words had hardly fallen from the General's lips before this ready commander had righted about his men and was on the double-quick. The thunder of the horses' feet on the hard road and the prolonged cheering of their riders sounded bravely enough, and the situation grew exceedingly in- teresting in view of a probable night attack by a force whose numbers were unknown. Colonel Butler, in a tone not to be mistaken, ordered his men to use their bayonets, if necessary, but under no circumstances to fire without orders, as it was extremely important not to betray the presence of infantry on the field. The Confederate line was as silent as the grave, due to the admirable precaution related above, which enabled each regiment to take up position without noise or confusion ; and the column galloping along the pike was evidently more exhilar- ated by the din of rattling sabres and clattering hoofs than the serious business of having a battle on their hands; and so it proved, when the critical moment came. At length, a turn in the road brought them in short range of the skirmish line, and a volley flashing in their faces instantly cut short all noisy exultation and changed the outcry to one of alarm and distress. It was a clap of thunder in a clear sky to these brave riders, of whom it was told that more than half were drunk. At any rate, the whole scene changed in the twinkling of an eye, and, from our stand-point, became farcical and ludicrous in the extreme, as the air resounded with evidences of confusion and haste to get away. One, probably an officer, called loudly for "Company I," but Com- pany I made no response, save from the dumb stones that flashed fire under the iron rimming of their horses' feet, beating madly to the rear. How the boys itched to pour just one volley into the mass piling up and surging back upon itself like a torrent hemmed in a gorge. The conflict inaugurated so threateningly, and with such a parade of dra- matic elements, was over with in less than two minutes, and the dis- comfited cavalrymen were in rapid retreat, which continued so as long as listening ears could catch the footfall of their horses on the stony road. It was said of this regiment that it was so demoralized and scat- tered by this night's work that it never came together again as an organ- ization. A more damaging report of its commander was current in Ken- tucky during our brief stay, but as he was said to be really a brave man in battle, we will not repeat it in this connection. In this little affair, several of the enemy were wounded and captured. Private J. W.
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Terry, of the Second Tennessee skirmishers, was wounded with a pis- tol ball in the abdomen, and thought to be fatally injured, but he aston- ished his comrades by falling into ranks in a short time, as devilish and xlucy as ever. Do any of our readers know Terry ? General Reynolds was reported by one of his men as saying, on this campaign, that his Geor- gians would storm Gibraltar with barlow-knives. Those who know Terry are firmly of the opinion that, with Thomps. Glenn for support, he could "cuss" the place into submission in less than ten minutes. The regiments slept on arms in line of battle the rest of the night, as a pre- caution against another attack, but nothing disturbed the weary slum- berers until the bugle sang out the reveille at an early hour the next morning ; and for too, too many friends, it sounded the last time on earth. Would to God it had been otherwise with them! But what avails groanings over the work of this woful Sabbath and the rulings of an unpitying Fate ? Let us rather say of the noble dead, whose bodies thronged the pathway of victory on this field, "God grant their spirits a peaceful rest !" There are names among them that the living cannot yet pronounce in a careless tone or remember without anguish. They are always wreathed with the cypress, and, to think of them, carries a comrade in thought to the little meadow with its shaven sward, where they died as proudly as martyrs, and to the adjacent cemetery where they sleep their last sleep in humble, but honorable, graves. God for- bid that such a record as theirs should perish or be converted into one of reproach. They were not traitors. Traitors are cowards ! Ah, well, I see I am throwing too much personality into this narrative by gushing over dead rebels, and the next thing my pen will be scribbling epitaphs. But -
The Battle of Richmond.
In true soldierly spirit, on Sunday morning, August 30, 1862, Cle- burne's Brigade led the advance on the village of Kingston, through which ran the turnpike to Richmond. As said before, they were now in the famous "Blue Grass," and the contrast of fertile fields and cul- tivated scenery with the desolate roads over which they had lately passed, seemed to give a buoyancy of spirits which was itself the pre- sage of victory. The land, though parched with drought, was yet bountiful, and the taste of Kentucky welcome from friends along the way diffused a general glow of good feeling throughout the little army.
A mile beyond Kingston, the Federal forces, in battle array, were awaiting the turn of events. Evidently they were not expecting such
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a display as now greeted their vision, when the Confederate advance came tramping down the road and filed right and left into line of bat- tle in the open field in less than five hundred yards of their position. At any rate, they allowed this brigade to occupy the ground with no more opposing than came from a few skirmishers; but as column after column appeared in sight. they awoke from their inaction with a blast of artillery, and the battle was opened in earnest. Without a halt, or seeming concern for flying shells, Preston Smith's Tennessee Brigade bore to the right on a dirt road and disappeared from view in the woods. Ector's Texans and Churchill's Arkansians filed to the left in the open field and took post accordingly. In the meantime, Douglass' Texas Battery had come up under heavy fire and unlimbered on a knoll near the center of Cleburne's Brigade. By these men, the compliments of the enemy's artillery were received with a sang froid that was long the subject of admiring remark among Cleburne's men. Another bat- tery-the name of which is forgotten-took post on a hill to the left. supported by Company C (Captain Newsom) of the Second Tennes- see. The skirmishers were at work from the outset, and the air was musical with singing minnies. There was a deliberation of movement and preparation which would have given the whole affair a holiday air but for the iron and lead which were being bandied about with unmis- takable wicked intent, and, per force, drawing some blood. This was particularly the case in the neighborhood of the two batteries. Douglass' and a hostile battery had been actively engaged with each other from the first, and the duel was not a bloodless affair. We re- member seeing a shell burst in front of one of our guns and a fragment strike down a gunner just as he was in the act of driving home a ball. and admiring the coolness of an officer who stepped into his place and finished the task with one hand, while with the other he dragged the dead man aside. These men fired with provoking deliberation, and we, the infantry, felt sure they would be worsted; but we noticed that their antagonists' aim was irregular-now too high, and then too low, and rarely at the proper level. The cause was revealed when we marched past the site of their battery a little later on, and saw the num- ber of dead artillerists clustered about it. However, there were other objects to divert the enemy's fire. General Cleburne and Colonels Hill and Butler sat on their horses in point blank range. The former was out among the skirmishers several times; in fact, once too often. for, as he rode forward to order them to advance, he was struck in the
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