The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government Volume II Part 2

The conflict on the left soon ended. Three hundred prisoners, five thousand stand of small-arms, six guns, and other spoils of victory, had been won by our forces. But the enemy, cautiously advancing, gradually recovered most of his lost ground. It was about 4 P.M. when the a.s.sault on the right was made by General C. F. Smith. The enemy succeeded in carrying the advanced work, which General Buckner considered the key to his position. The loss of the enemy during the siege was four hundred killed, seventeen hundred and eighty-five wounded, and three hundred prisoners. Our losses were about three hundred and twenty-five killed and one thousand and ninety-seven wounded; including missing, it was estimated at fifteen hundred.

After nightfall a consultation of the commanding officers was held, and, after a consideration of the question in all its aspects as to what should be done, it was decided that a surrender was inevitable, and, that to accomplish its objects, it must be made before the a.s.sault, which was expected at daylight. General Buckner in his report, says:

"I regarded the position of the army as desperate, and that the attempt to extricate it by another battle, in the suffering and exhausted condition of the troops, was almost hopeless. The troops had been worn down with watching, with labor, with fighting. Many of them were frosted by the cold, all of them were suffering and exhausted by their incessant labors. There had been no regular issue of rations for several days, and scarcely any means of cooking. The ammunition was nearly expended. We were completely invested by a force fully four times the strength of our own."

The decision to surrender having been made, it remained to determine by whom it should be made. Generals Floyd and Pillow declared they would not surrender and become prisoners; the duty was therefore allotted to General Buckner. Floyd said, "General Buckner, if I place you in command, will you allow me to draw out my brigade?" General Buckner replied, "Yes, provided you do so before the enemy act upon my communication." Floyd said, "General Pillow, I turn over the command.". General Pillow, regarding this as a mere technical form by which the command was to be conveyed to Buckner, then said, "I pa.s.s it." Buckner a.s.sumed the command, sent for a bugler to sound the parley, for pen, ink, and paper, and opened the negotiations for surrender.

There were but two roads by which it was possible for the garrison to retire. If they went by the upper road, they would certainly have to cut through the main body of the enemy; if by the lower road, they would have to wade through water three feet deep. This, the medical director stated, would be death to more than one half the command, on account of the severity of the weather and their physical prostration.

To cut through the enemy, if effected, would, it was supposed, involve the loss of three fourths of the command, a sacrifice which, it was conceded, would not be justifiable.

The enemy had, in the conflict of the preceding day, gained possession of our rifle-pits on the right flank, and General Buckner, an experienced soldier, held that the fort would immediately fall when the enemy attacked in the morning. General Pillow dissented from this conclusion, believing that the fort could be defended until boats could be obtained to convey the garrison across the river, and also advocated an attempt to cut through the investing lines of the enemy. Being overruled on both points, he announced his determination to leave the post by any means available, so as to escape a surrender, and he advised Colonel N. B. Forrest, who was present, to go out with his cavalry regiment, and any others he could take with him through the overflow. General Floyd's brigade consisted of two Virginia regiments and one Mississippi regiment; these, as before mentioned, it was agreed that General Floyd might withdraw before the surrender. Two of the field-officers, Colonel Russell and Major Brown, of the Mississippi regiment, the twentieth, had been officers of the First Mississippi Riflemen in the war with Mexico; and the twentieth, their present regiment, was reputed to be well instructed and under good discipline. This regiment was left to be surrendered with the rest of the garrison, under peculiar circ.u.mstances, of which Major Brown, then commanding, gives the following narrative:

"About twelve o'clock of the night previous to the surrender, I received an order to report in person at headquarters. On arriving I met Colonel N. B. Forrest, who remarked: 'I have been looking for you; they are going to surrender this place, and I wanted you with your command to go out with me, but they have other orders for you.'

On entering the room. Generals Floyd and Pillow also informed me of the proposed proceedings. General Floyd ordered me to take possession of the steamboat-landing with my command; that he had reserved the right to remove his brigade; that, after having guarded the landing, my command should be taken aboard the boat; the Virginia regiments, first crossing to the other side of the river, could make their way to Clarksville.

"I proceeded at once with my command to the landing; there was no steamboat there, but I placed my regiment in a semicircular line so as to cover the landing-place. About daylight the steamer came down, landed, and was soon loaded with the two Virginia regiments, they pa.s.sing through my ranks. At the same time the General and staff, or persons claiming to belong to the staff, pa.s.sed aboard. The boat, being a small one, was considerably crowded. While the staging of the boat was being drawn aboard. General Floyd hallooed to me, from the 'hurricane-roof,' that he would cross the river with the troops aboard and return for my regiment. But, about the time of the departure of the boat, General S. B. Buckner came and a.s.serted that he had turned over the garrison and all the property at sunrise; that, if the boat was not away immediately, he would be charged by the enemy with violating the terms of the surrender. I mention this incident as furnis.h.i.+ng, I suppose, the reason why my regiment was left on the bank of the river.

"Sorrowfully I gave the necessary orders to stack arms and surrender... .

"Both morally and materially the disaster was a severe blow to us.

Many, wise after the event, have shown their skill in telling what all knew afterward, but n.o.body told before."

[Footnote 7: "The Life of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston," by his son.]

[Footnote 8: "The Life of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston," by his son.]

[Footnote 9: "The Life of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston," by his son.]

[Footnote 10: "The Life of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston," by his son.]

CHAPTER XVII.

Results of the Surrender of Forts Henry and Donelson.--Retreat from Bowling Green.--Criticism on General A. S. Johnston.--Change of Plan necessary.--Evacuation of Nashville.--Generals Floyd and Pillow.--My Letter to General Johnston.--His Reply.--My Answer.-- Defense of General Johnston.--Battle of Elkhorn.--Topography of s.h.i.+loh.

The loss of Forts Henry and Donelson opened the river routes to Nashville and north Alabama, and thus turned the positions both at Bowling Green and Columbus. These disasters subjected General Johnston to very severe criticism, of which we shall take notice further on in these pages. A conference was held on February 7th by Generals Johnston, Beauregard (who had been previously ordered to report to Johnston), and Hardee, as to the future plan of campaign.

It was determined, as Fort Henry had fallen and Donelson was untenable, that preparations should at once be made for a removal of the army to Nashville, in rear of the c.u.mberland River, a strong point some miles below that city being fortified forthwith to defend the river from the pa.s.sage of gunboats and transports. From Nashville, should any further retrograde movement become necessary, it would be made to Stevenson, and thence according to circ.u.mstances.

As the possession of the Tennessee river by the enemy separated the array at Bowling Green from the one at Columbus, Kentucky, they must act independently of each other until they could be brought together: the first one having for its object the defense of the State of Tennessee along its line of operation; and the other, of that part of the State lying between the Tennessee River and the Mississippi. But, as the possession of the former river by the enemy rendered the lines of communication of the army at Columbus liable to be cut at any time by a movement from the Tennessee River as a base, and an overpowering force of the enemy was rapidly concentrating from various points on the Ohio, it was necessary, to prevent such a calamity, that the main body of the army should fall back to Humboldt, and thence, if necessary, to Grand Junction, so as to protect Memphis from either point and still have a line of retreat to the latter place, or to Grenada, and, if needful, to Jackson, Mississippi.

Captain Hollins's fleet of improvised gunboats and a sufficient garrison was to be left at Columbus for the defense of the river at that point, with transports near at hand for the removal of the garrison when the position became no longer tenable.

Every preparation for the retreat was silently made. The defenses of Bowling Green, originally slight, had been greatly enlarged by the addition of a cordon of detached forts, mounted with heavy field-guns; yet the garrison was only sufficiently strong to withstand an a.s.sault, and it was never proposed to submit to a siege.

The ordnance and army supplies were quietly moved southward, and measures were taken to remove from Nashville the immense stores acc.u.mulated there. Only five hundred men were in the hospital before the army commenced to retreat, but, when it reached Nashville, five thousand four hundred out of fourteen thousand required the care of the medical officers. On February 11th the troops began to move, and at nightfall on the 16th General Johnston, who had established his headquarters at Edgeville, on the northern bank of the c.u.mberland, saw the last of his wearied columns defile across and safely establish themselves beyond the river. The evacuation was accomplished by a force so small as to make the feat remarkable, not a pound of ammunition nor a gun being lost, and the provisions were nearly all secured. The first intimation which the enemy had of the intended evacuation, so far as has been ascertained, was when Generals Hindman and Breckinridge, who were in advance near his camp, were seen suddenly to retreat toward Bowling Green. The enemy pursued, and succeeded in sh.e.l.ling the town, while Hindman was still covering the rear. Not a man was lost.[11] At the same time Crittenden's command was brought back within ten miles of Nashville, and thence to Murfreesboro.

Scarcely had the retreat to Nashville been accomplished, when the news of the fall of Donelson was received. The state of feeling which it produced is described by Colonel Munford, an aide-de-camp of General Johnston, in an address delivered in Memphis. "Dissatisfaction was general. Its mutterings, already heard, began to break out in denunciations. The demagogues took up the cry, and hounded on one another and the people in hunting down a victim. The public press was loaded with abuse. The Government was denounced for intrusting the public safety to hands so feeble. The Lower House of Congress appointed a select committee to inquire into the conduct of the war in the Western Department. The Senators and Representatives from Tennessee, with the exception of Judge Swann, waited upon the President." Their spokesman, Senator G. A. Henry, stated that they came for and in behalf of Tennessee to ask for the removal of General A. S. Johnston, and the a.s.signment of a competent officer to the defense of their homes and people. It was further stated that they did not come to recommend any one as the successor; that it was conceded that the President was better able than they were to select a proper officer, and they only asked that he would give them a general.

Painfully impressed by this exhibition of distrust toward an officer whose place, if vacated, I was sure could not be filled by his equal, realizing how necessary public confidence was to success, and wounded by the injustice done to one I had known with close intimacy in peace and in war, and believed to be one of the n.o.blest men with whom I had ever been a.s.sociated, and one of the ablest soldiers I had ever seen in the field, I paused under conflicting emotions, and after a time merely answered, "If Sidney Johnston is not a general, the Confederacy has none to give you."

On February 17th the rear guard from Bowling Green reached Nashville, and on the 18th General Johnston wrote to the Secretary of War at Richmond, saying:

"I have ordered the army to encamp to-night midway between Nashville and Murfreesboro. My purpose is to place the force in such a position that the enemy can not concentrate his superior strength against the command, and to enable me to a.s.semble as rapidly as possible such other troops in addition as it may be in my power to collect. The complete command which their gunboats and transports give them upon the Tennessee and c.u.mberland renders it necessary for me to retire my line between the rivers. I entertain the hope that this disposition will enable me to hold the enemy for the present in check, and, when my forces are sufficiently increased, to drive him back."

The fall of Fort Donelson made a speedy change of his plans necessary. General Johnston was now compelled to withdraw his forces from the north bank of the c.u.mberland, and to abandon the defense of Nashville; in a word, to evacuate Nashville or sacrifice the army.

Not more than eleven thousand effective men were left to him with which to oppose General Buell with not less than forty thousand men, moving by Bowling Green, while another superior force, under General Thomas, was on the eastern flank; and the armies from Fort Donelson, with the gunboats and transport, had it in their power to ascend the c.u.mberland, so as to interrupt all communication with the south.

On February 17th and 18th the main body of the command was moved from Nashville to Murfreesboro, while a brigade remained under General Floyd to bring on the stores and property upon the approach of the enemy, all of which would have been saved except for the heavy and general rains. By the junction of the command of General Crittenden and the fugitives from Donelson, who were reorganized, the force of General Johnston was increased to seventeen thousand men. The stores not required for immediate use were ordered to Chattanooga, and those which were necessary on the march were ordered to Huntsville and Decatur. On February 28th the march was commenced for Decatur through Shelbyville and Fayetteville. Halting at those points for the purpose, he saved his provisions and stores, removed his depots and machine-shops, obtained new arms, and finally, at the close of March, joined Beauregard at Corinth with twenty thousand men, making their aggregate force fifty thousand.

Considering the great advantage which the means of transportation upon the Tennessee and c.u.mberland afforded the enemy, and the peculiar topography of the State, General Johnston found that he could not with the force under his command successfully defend the whole line against the advance of the enemy. He was, therefore, compelled to elect whether the enemy should be permitted to occupy Middle Tennessee, or turn Columbus, take Memphis, and open the valley of the Mississippi. Deciding that the defense of the valley was of paramount importance, he therefore crossed the Tennessee and united with Beauregard.

The evacuation of Nashville and the evident intention of General Johnston to retreat still further, created a panic in the public mind which spread over the whole State. Those who had refused to listen to his warning voice, when it called them to arms, were loudest in their pa.s.sionate outcry at what they considered a base surrender of them to the mercies of the invader. He was accused of imbecility, cowardice, and treason. An appeal from every cla.s.s was made to the President demanding his removal. Congress took the matter in hand, and, though the feeling there resulted merely in a committee of inquiry, it was evident that the case was prejudged. The Confederate House of Representatives created a special committee "to inquire into the military disasters at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, and the surrender of Nashville to the enemy," and as to the conduct, number, and disposition of the troops under General Johnston. Great feeling was shown in the debates.

Generals Floyd and Pillow, the senior officers at Fort Donelson, after it had been decided to surrender, withdrew, to avoid being made prisoners. The Secretary of War (Mr. Benjamin) wrote, March 11th, to General Johnston as follows:

"The reports of Brigadier-Generals Floyd and Pillow are unsatisfactory, and the President directs that both these generals be relieved from command until further orders. In the mean time you will request them to add to their reports such statements as they may deem proper on the points submitted. You are further requested to make up a report, from all the sources of information accessible to you, of all the particulars connected with the unfortunate affair, which can contribute to enlighten the judgment of the Executive and of Congress, and to fix the blame, if blame there be, on those who were delinquent in duty."

This state of affairs, under the command of General Johnston, was the occasion of the following correspondence:

_Letter from President Davis to General A. S. Johnston._

"RICHMOND, _March 12, 1862._

"MY DEAR GENERAL: The departure of Captain Wickliffe offers an opportunity, of which I avail myself, to write you an unofficial letter. We have suffered great anxiety because of recent events in Kentucky and Tennessee, and I have been not a little disturbed by the repet.i.tions of reflections upon yourself. I expected you to have made a full report of events precedent and consequent to the fall of Fort Donelson. In the mean time, I made for you such defense as friends.h.i.+p prompted, and many years of acquaintance justified; but I needed facts to rebut the wholesale a.s.sertions made against you to cover others and to condemn my administration. The public, as you are aware, have no correct measure for military operations, and the journals are very reckless in their statements.

"Your force has been magnified, and the movements of an army have been measured by the capacity for locomotion of an individual.

"The readiness of the people, among whom you are operating, to aid you in every method, has been constantly a.s.serted; the purpose of your army at Bowling Green wholly misunderstood; and the absence of an effective force at Nashville ignored. You have been held responsible for the fall of Donelson and the capture of Nashville. It is charged that no effort was made to save the stores at Nashville, and that the panic of the people was caused by the army.

"Such representations, with the sad forebodings naturally belonging to them, have been painful to me, and injurious to us both; but, worse than this, they have undermined public confidence and damaged our cause. A full development of the truth is necessary for future success.

"I respect the generosity which has kept you silent, but would impress upon you that the question is not personal but public in its nature; that you and I might be content to suffer, but neither of us can willingly permit detriment to the country. As soon as circ.u.mstances will permit, it is my purpose to visit the field of your present operations; not that I shall expect to give you any aid in the discharge of your duties as a commander, but with the hope that my position would enable me to effect something in bringing men to your standard. With a sufficient force, the audacity which the enemy exhibits would no doubt give you the opportunity to cut some of his lines of communication, to break up his plan of campaign, and, defeating some of his columns, to drive him from the soil as well of Kentucky as of Tennessee.

"We are deficient in arms, wanting in discipline, and inferior in numbers. Private arms must supply the first want; time and the presence of an enemy, with diligence on the part of commanders, will remove the second; and public confidence will overcome the third.

General Bragg brings you disciplined troops, and you will find in him the highest administrative capacity. General E. K. Smith will soon have in East Tennessee a sufficient force to create a strong diversion in your favor; or, if his strength can not be made available in that way, you will best know how to employ it otherwise.

I suppose the Tennessee or the Mississippi River will be the object of the enemy's next campaign, and I trust you will be able to concentrate a force which will defeat either attempt. The fleet which you will soon have on the Mississippi River, if the enemy's gunboats ascend the Tennessee, may enable you to strike an effective blow at Cairo; but, to one so well informed and vigilant, I will not a.s.sume to offer suggestions as to when and how the ends you seek may be attained. With the confidence and regard of many years, I am very truly your friend,

"JEFFERSON DAVIS."

_Letter of General Johnston in answer to that above._

"DECATUR, ALABAMA, _March 18, 1862._