USA > Tennessee > The military annals of Tennessee. Confederate. First series: embracing a review of military operations, with regimental histories and memorial rolls, V.1 > Part 7
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* " Life of General A. S. Johnston," pp. 462, 463.
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night there was some talk of renewing on the morrow the at- temipt to escape, but it was decided to be impracticable. Floyd "turned over" the command to Pillow; he in turn " passed" it to Buckner, who the next morning surrendered, resolving, like a true soldier, to share the fate of his men. Floyd and Pillow and several thousand of the men escaped, as did also Forrest and his cavalry. The fall of Forts Henry and Donelson and surrender of the army was a great disaster to the Confederate cause. To have repulsed Grant, and compelled him to raise the siege, or to have saved the army, would have been worth all it could have cost.
The entire Confederate force on the line from Bowling Green to Columbus, and in reserve, never exceeded forty-three thousand men. Johnston with perhaps fourteen or fifteen thousand at Bowl- ing Green had held in check the vast army of Buell, seventy-five thousand strong. His line had been turned on the right at Fishing Creek, broken by the surrender of Henry and Donelson, the Cum- berland was open to Nashville, and the Tennessee to North Ala- bama, in rear of Nashville, and Columbus was isolated. He appears to have used to the best advantage the very inadequate force and material at his command. But one course was left open to him-to retreat, and call on the South for an army. The first plan was to fall back to Nashville and the line of the Cumber- land, and hold that if practicable; otherwise, to continue the retreat to Stevenson, at the junction of the Nashville and Chat- tanooga and Memphis and Charleston railroads, in North Ala- bama. The force at Columbus would act independently and re- tire to Humboldt or Grand Junction, for the purpose of protect- ing Memphis and maintaining a line of retreat to Grenada. or even to Jackson, Mississippi. It is said that in January Gen- eral Johnston was one day engaged with a friend in examining a map on which was exhibited the course of the Tennessee River. Pointing out a spot marked "Shiloh Church," he said: "Here the great battle of the South-west will be fought."
The South made many mistakes both before and during the war. One of her most fatal errors was the belief that there would be no war of consequence. When, however, the " Pesce Congress" of February, 1861, adjourned without having accom- plished any thing, and it became evident that the commissioners of South Carolina could not get a hearing, and that an atteint
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would be made to relieve Fort Sumter, it was plain that war was inevitable. The South would not believe it. Hence, John- stou was in great measure without an army and without arms. As Nashville was indefensible, he retired to Murfreesboro, ap- parently intending to retreat on Chattanooga, thus deceiving the enemy. At Murfreesboro he reorganized his small force, which now consisted of the few thousands that had occupied Bowling Green -- the remnants of the army that fought at Fishing Creck and the fragments that escaped from Henry and Donelson. In all there were about seventeen thousand men, who represented thirty-five regiments and five battalions of infantry, seven regi- ments and five battalions of cavalry, and twelve batteries of ar- tillery. They were chiefly Tennesseans; and besides there were small bodies from Mississippi, Virginia, Kentucky, Texas, Ar- kansas, and Alabama. Every thing possible was done to restore discipline; and on the 28th of February the reorganized army took up its line of march through Shelbyville and Fayetteville to Decatur, on the south bank of the Tennessee, in North Ala- bama, and thence to Corinth, in North-east Mississippi. The movement was well covered by the cavalry, but entailed great hardship and suffering on an inexperienced and undisciplined army. "The incessant rains, varying from a drizzle to a torrent, flooded the roads, washed away the bridges, and made encamp- ment almost intolerable and marching nearly impossible." "Two weeks of unintermitting rain had softened the earth until the surface resembled a vast swamp." "The difficulties attending it [the retreat ] were great, but a more orderly and more success- ful one, under all the circumstances, was perhaps never accom- plished. Popular indignation -- even rage-blind but full of con- fidence, and of such force as would have goaded common minds into desperation, was poured out upon the head of the com- mander. The wintry season-inclement, unpropitious beyond measure for such an undertaking-was calculated both to tax the skill of the General and destroy the martial ardor, even the ordinary morale, of the troops. Dangers menaced the retreat- ing army as much as hardships crowded upon its course. . .
" When the line of march was taken up, and the heads of the columns were still turned southward, the dissatisfaction of the troops broke out into fresh and frequent murmurs. . . , Unjust as it was, officers and men concurred in laying the whole burden
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of blame upon General Johnston. Many a voice was then raised to denounce him which has since been enthusiastic in his praise, and many joined in the clamor then almost universally against him who, a few weeks later, when he lay dead upon the field he had so gallantly fought, would have given their own lives to recall him."* Such are the descriptions given by eye-witnesses of the sufferings borne, for the sake of the cause in which it was en- gaged, by a comparatively raw army, which, in spite of its cour- age and endurance, had suffered defeat, and lost confidence-un- justly it is true -- in its commander.
By the 25th of March the concentration at Corinth was com- pleted. On the 2d Columbus was evacuated. A division was ordered to Island No. 10, a brigade to New Madrid, and the re- mainder of the troops to Union City, whence they finally united with the army at Corinth. When it became known to the Fed- eral commander in the West that the Confederates were concen- trating at Corinth, he determined to attack them with the com- bined armies of Buell and Grant. The latter had ascended the Tennessee and occupied Pittsburg Landing, on the left bank of the river, seven miles above Savannah and twenty-three from Corinth. His effective total in the battle of Shiloh was over forty- nine thousand men, all from the Western and North-western States -Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Kentucky. Johnston had succeeded in collecting an effective total of over forty thousand from the States of Tennessee, Kentucky, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. His army was styled the ARMY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. Buell was still on the march from Nashville, and Johnston determined to take the offensive, and attack Grant before Buell should arrive. His army was put in motion at an early hour on the morning of Thursday, April 3. The men, knowing that a battle was pending, were full of ardor and en- thusiasm. The intention was to surprise and attack Grant's army early on the morning of Saturday, the 5th; but, owing to incessant rains and consequent bad roads, in part also to misun- derstandings unavoidable in a newly organized and undisciplined army, the different corps did not reach the positions assigned them until the afternoon of the 5th -too late to fight a battle that day. The attack was therefore deferred to the morning.
# " Life of General .1. S. Johnston," pp. 503-510.
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On Sunday, April 6, 1862, was fought the first great battle of the war in the South-west. The Confederate army engaged after- ward became known as the Army of Tennessee, and its conduct on this occasion was worthy of its subsequent history and renown. But few of its rank and file had been in battle before. By far the greater portion of them were raw levies, wholly undisciplined, and very poorly armed.
In a letter to President Davis, written at Decatur, Alabama. March 18, 1862, General Johnston said: "I determined to fight for Nashville at Donelson, and gave the best part of my army to do it, retaining only fourteen thousand men to cover my front, and giving sixteen thousand to defend Donelson. . . . Had I wholly uncovered my front to defend Donelson, Buell would have known it, and marched directly to Nashville. . . . The evacuation of Bowling Green was imperatively necessary, and was ordered be- fore, and executed while, the battle was being fought at Dorel- son." Finding Nashville and the line of the Cumberland inde- fensible, he retreated to Corinth, some twenty-three miles from "Shiloh Church," where his military discernment taught him "the great battle of the South-west would be fought." It was Johnston's own idea to fight a battle at this place. The oppor- tunity he had been waiting for presented itself, and he hoped by a decisive blow to silence clamor and censure, and regain all that had been lost. He inspired the movement and planned it in outline, leaving the arrangement of details to subordinates. No one who saw him on the field of battle on the fateful morn- ing of April 6 could fail to be struck by his bearing. His whole mien was singularly noble and soldierly, characterized by a calm dignity that was inspired by a consciousness of power and con- tidence in the result in the great issue of the day. It was a presage of victory.
At five o'clock in the afternoon of Saturday a conference of the principal officers was held. One of these at least, of high rank, thought it too late to fight a battle at all, as owing to the de- lay in getting into position, the enemy would be on the alert, and a surprise impossible. Johnston overruled all objections, and or- dered an attack at daylight next morning. The battle opened soon after five o'clock on a cloudless Sabbath morning. The enemy were taken completely by surprise, but rallied and op- posed the dashing assaults of the Confederates with stubborn
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valor. The several Confederate lines followed each other in due order, aud notwithstanding his determined resistance, drove back the enemy with the force of a resistless torrent. By six in the evening all the Federal encampments-except perhaps one -- were in possession of the Confederates, and nearly all their field artillery had been captured. "About thirty flags-colors and standards-over three thousand prisoners, including a division commander and several brigade commanders, thousands of small arms, an immense supply of subsistence, forage, and munitions of war, and a large amount of means of transportation-all the substantial fruits of a complete victory, such indeed as rarely have followed the most successful battles; for never was an ariny so well provided as that of our enemy"-fell into the hands of the victors. The field had been completely swept, and the foe driven back to the river under shelter of the fire from his gun- boats. It needed only the inspiring presence and skillful hand of the master-spirit that had raised and guided the storm of battle to press the enemy to a surrender, and thus put the finish- ing stroke to one of the most brilliant victories of which the annals of war contain a record. But alas! that master-spirit was no more of earth. In the very moment of victory, the bat- tle, and with it seemingly the Confederate cause, was lost. Soon after six o'clock General Johnston himself led a heroic charge on a part of the field where the enemy made stubborn resistance. The charge was successful. The Federal line was rolled back upon its reserve, against which the Confederate line was estab- lished, and Johnston knew it was necessary only to collect his forces sufficiently to give the final stroke. While in the act of giving orders for a regiment of Confederate infantry to charge a battery which enfiladed his line, General Johnston was struck in the right leg by a Minie-ball. The wound was not necessa- rily fatal; but, unaware of its nature and of his danger, no ef- fort was made to stanch the flow of blood from a severed artery. and in a few minutes he bled to death. The report of his fall spread over the field, the victors relaxed their efforts, the routed and disorganized foe was permitted to retire under cover of the fire of his gun-boats and of his remaining artillery, which had been massed for the purpose, and the battle ceased. During the night Buell's army arrived, crossed the river, and refuforced Grant. On Monday, the 7th, the weary and partially disorgau-
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ized Confederates were compelled to fight another battle with the fresh troops of Buell. By one o'clock the new Confederate commander found that despite the heroic resistance of his shat- tered battalions, he was gradually losing ground. He therefore slowly and skillfully withdrew from the useless combat, and no attempt at pursuit was made. The total loss of the Army of the Mississippi was ten thousand six hundred and ninety-nine in killed, wounded, and missing. It had fought and utterly routed an army of greatly superior numbers on Sunday. On Monday it fought a second battle with what remained of the same army, reenforced by more than twenty thousand fresh men. The total of the Federal armies was nearly seventy-one thousand; their loss eleven thousand two hundred and twenty. No army on either side during the entire war did better work than was per- formed by the Army of the Mississippi at Shiloh. The Confed- erates slowly retired to Corinth, and were placed in position to guard the approaches from the direction of Shiloh. General Halleck assumed command of the united Federal armies, which were increased to more than one hundred thousand men. One Northern writer states that the armies of Grant and Pope -- together eighty thousand strong-could have been concentrated at Pittsburg Landing, while those of Buell and Mitchell, num- bering fifty or sixty thousand, could have been united at Deca- tur, in North Alabama, and all moved against Johnston at Cor- inth. Of course his army would have been destroyed. The strategy of the Northern commander in the West was not equal to such a combination.
General Halleck undertook to reach Corinth by a regular se- ries of approaches, and advanced at the rate of less than a mile per day. He was held at bay until the night of the 29th of May, when the Confederates quietly decamped and retired without loss to Tupelo. Here some weeks were passed in drilling, dis- ciplining, reorganizing, and recruiting the army. General Beau- regard-who succeeded Johnston-retired from the command. to which General Braxton Bragg was assigned. The Federal forces were distributed to different points. Buell moved in the direction of Chattanooga. Halleck was transferred to Wash- ington as Commander-in-chief of the armies of the United States, and Grant was placed in supreme command at Corinth. After resting and refitting at Tupelo, the Army of the Mississippi was
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transferred to Chattanooga. Buell fell back to Nashville, which place he fortified, and Bragg determined on an invasion of Ken- tueky, with the hope of drawing Buell away from Nashville, and also of inducing the people of Kentucky to join the Con- federacy. If he could obtain sufficient reinforcements of Ken- tuckians, he might hope to defeat Buell in battle. General Kir- by Smith was at Knoxville in command of the Department of East Tennessee. He set out from that place in August with the Army of Kentucky, to cooperate with Bragg in his projected campaign. On the 16th of August Smith crossed the Cumber- land Mountains, and on the 30th encountered, near Richmond, Kentucky, a Federal army nearly or quite as large as his own. He routed it with a loss to the enemy of fourteen hundred killed and wounded and four thousand prisoners, his own casualties not exceeding five hundred. On the 2d of September he occu- pied Lexington.
The Army of the Mississippi began its movement on the 28th of August. It crossed the Tennessee at Chattanooga, and con- tinued its march over Walden's Ridge and Cumberland Mount- ains-by way of Pikeville and Sparta-into Kentucky. On the 12th of September the advance reached Glasgow, and on the same day General Bragg wrote to Adjutant-general Cooper that Buell was concentrating the larger part of his army at Bowling Green; that the most gratifying accounts of his command und the country were received from Kirby Smith, and expressed the opin- ion that with arms he could clear Tennessee and Kentucky. and hold both. Smith's reports led him to expect that he would be joined by at least twenty-five thousand Kentuckians, for whom arms must be provided. He evidently hoped that Nashville would be evacuated; but in that was disappointed. At Mun- fordsville, where the Louisville and Nashville railroad crosses Green River, with a loss of fifty killed and wounded, he capt- ured some four thousand prisoners, an equal number of muskets. with many guns and much ammunition, besides killing and wounding seven hundred. On the 23d he occupied Bardstown. In the meantime, Buell, leaving a strong garrison at Nashville, marched to Louisville, where his army was increased to fully a hundred thousand men. He remained in Louisville reorganiz- ing his army until October, when, under a threat of being su- perseded, he began an offensive campaign against Bragg. The
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latter had collected an immense train, mostly of Federal army- wagons, which were heavily loaded with supplies gathered up in the State and at Federal depots. It was clear by this time that the two great objects sought to be accomplished by the invasion of Kentucky would fail-Nashville would not be evacuated, and Kentucky would not join the Confederacy. Bragg, therefore, desired only to gain time to effect a retreat with his spoils. He harassed the advance of Buell on Bardstown and Springfield, retired to Danville, and thence marched to Harrodsburg to effect a junction with Kirby Smith. On the 7th he moved to Perry- ville, where, on Wednesday, the Sth, a battle was fought between a portion of Bragg's army and Buell's advance commanded by McCook. The Confederate force engaged in this battle did not exceed fifteen thousand men. They fought more than double their own number-two corps of probably not less than eighteen thousand each, while a third of equal strength was within sup- porting distance. The enemy were driven from the field with a loss-killed, wounded, and prisoners-of more than ten thousand. The Confederate loss was over three thousand.
During this Kentucky campaign-from August 27th to Octo- ber 12th, 1862-General Bragg's army, including the troops un- der Kirby Smith and Morgan's cavalry, captured thirty - five pieces of artillery, fifteen thousand muskets, three hundred and thirty wagons, and seventeen hundred and fifty mules; killed two thousand four hundred and thirty of the enemy, wounded nine thousand six hundred, captured fourteen thousand five hundred. The Federal Government was so dissatisfied with the results of the campaign that on October 30th General Buell was relieved, and Major-general Rosecrans put in his place. The Confederate army retired leisurely through Cumberland Gap to Knoxville, was moved thence by rail to Tullahoma, in Middle Tennessee, and finally marched to Murfreesboro, taking position in front of that place. Murfreesboro is situated on the line of the Nashville and Chattanooga railroad, some thirty miles south- east of Nashville. Here the army was reorganized, and for the first time was styled the Army of Tennessee-a name by which it continued to be known to the end of the war. As a matter of great historic interest, the organization of the Army of Tennes- see as it existed at the battle of Murfreesboro, at the battle of. Chickamauga, on the 30th of June, 1864, and April 17, 1865, is
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given in an appendix; also the organization of the Federal army commanded by Major-general Rosecrans at the battle of Mur- freesboro. These were kindly furnished by Colonel Robert N. Scott, of the Publication Office, War Records, Washington, D. C.
The President of the Confederacy visited the army during the month of December. Perhaps the largest of Bragg's divisions -that commanded by Major-general Stevenson-was ordered to Mississippi. Rosecrans-now at Nashville-determined to move upon his opponent thus weakened. He felt, doubtless, that the circumstances under which he was assigned to command imposed upon him the necessity of taking the offensive at the earliest moment practicable. His army was put in motion on the morn- ing of December 26th, and arrived in front of Murfreesboro by the evening of the 30th. The Army of Tennessee was drawn up north of the town, beyond the point where the turnpike road leading to Nashville crosses the Nashville and Chattanooga rail- road. The right was posted on the east side of Stone's River, the center and left on the west. The two commanders happened to adopt the same general plan of operations, which was to take the offensive, and each with his own left attack and turn his adversary's right. The battle opened early on the morning of the 31st. While the Federal left was crossing Stone's River for the purpose of attacking the Confederate right, intending to swing into Murfreesboro, and then, by the Franklin road, gain the flank and rear of the Confederates, and drive them from their line of retreat, the Confederate left, taking the initiative, ad- vanced with impetuosity against the Federal right, and drove it in confusion from the field. The movement was followed up as rapidly as possible toward the Confederate center and right-cen- ter, and was everywhere successful, the entire Federal line west of the river, except its extreme left, being put to rout. The chances are that the presence of Stevenson's division would have enabled Bragg to dislodge the left of Rosecrans, and render the victory decisive. The latter re-formed his line far to the rear of his first position. Bragg withdrew his right from the east side of the river and hurled it against Rosecrans's left; but the at- tack failed of its object, and the battle of the 31st ended. The next day Rosecrans again threw a force to the east side of Stone's River, threatening the Confederate right and rear. On the after- noon of January 2d Bragg attempted to dislodge this force, but
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met with a severe repulse, and during the night of the 3d re- tired his army to Shelbyville and Tullahoma. Rosecrans entered Murfreesboro, but his army was in no condition for pursuit. The strength of the Federal army in the battle of Murfreesboro, as stated by a Northern writer, was forty-three thousand four hundred: that of the Army of Tennessee was under thirty-five thousand. The loss of the former was some fourteen thousand; of the latter, upward of ten thousand. The loss inflicted upon the enemy by the troops under Bragg's command from Decem- ber 1, 1502, to January 2, 1503, amounted to forty-six pieces of artillery, twelve thousand five hundred muskets, nine hundred and twenty wagons. four thousand six hundred mules, five thou- sand five hundred killedl. seventeen thousand five hundred wounded. eleven thousand four hundred and three prisoners.
Some time before the battle of Murfreesboro General Bragg, while in conversation with an officer of his army, remarked that he would never again " use the spade; " that in the beginning of the war he had been compelled to resort to it, but he thought it did not suit the genius of the Southern ,people, and he would not use it again. Subsequent events made clear his error. In war there is no way of putting the weaker party on an equality with the stronger but by using the spade, or by superior strat- egy. Possibly by the use of the spade he might have held Mur- freesboro through the winter, and until his army could be suffi- ciently reenforced to enable it to take the offensive. The military power of the Confederacy should have been concentrated to the utmost limit of practicability in the two principal armies-the Army of Tennessee and the Army of Northern Virginia. De- cisive victories over the armies opposed to them would doubtless have led to the recognition of the Confederacy and the close of the war.
During the next six months, or until the latter part of June, 1863, the Federal army lay comparatively idle at Murfreesboro. In the meantime. of course, there occurred numerous reconnois- sances and affairs of outposts. The infantry of the Army of Tennessee occupied a line extending from Shelbyville to War- trace, the cavalry covering the flanks at MeMinnville on the right, and at Spring Hill and Columbia on the left. In the lat- ter part of June, Morgan was detached with upward of two thousand cavalry, and sent across Tennessee and Kentucky into
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Southern Indiana and Ohio, where Morgan himself and many of his men were captured, and the rest dispersed. This unwise and fruitless movement so reduced Bragg's cavalry that Rose- crans determined to take the field. His plan was similar to that which he adopted at Murfreesboro-to turn Bragg's right, and either force a battle on ground of his own selection or compel a retreat. On the 24th the Federal army was in motion. On the 26th, after various skirmishes along the entire line, Bragg's right was passed, and he fell back to Tullahoma, where battle was offered but declined. As his communications were continually endangered by the enemy's movements, and his force was not sufficient to guard them without too much weakening his main body, he withdrew from Tullahoma to the most defensible line of Elk River, and finally, with but trifling loss of men and ma- terials, crossed the Cumberland Mountains to the line of the Tennessee. Rosecrans did not follow immediately, but estab- lished his camps from Winchester to MeMinnville, in the south- ern part of Middle Tennessee. Bragg concentrated his army at Chattanooga. Thus a second time the Tennesseans, who com- posed so large a part of the Army of Tennessee, abandoned their homes to the tender mercies of the invader, and followed the fortunes of the Confederate flag. It would seem that with the aid of "the spade," the rivers, and the mountains, Middle Ten- nessee might have been held against a largely superior force. So far Bragg's operations had proved an entire failure, although his army had performed all his demands. He was again at Chat- tanooga, whence he marched the year before for the invasion of Kentucky, and Tennessee was in the hands of the enemy. An opportunity soon presented itself, however-if it had only been rightly improved-to destroy the army of Rosecrans, and more than regain all that had been lost.
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