IN CAMP AND BATTLE WITH GRANT AND HIS GENERALS.
Marching into the enemy's country—A night in a church with a Bible for pillow—Our communications are cut—Entering the capital of Mississippi—The War Department gives Grant full authority—Battle of Champion's Hill—General Logan's peculiarity—Battlefield incidents—Vicksburg invested and the siege begun—Personal traits of Sherman, McPherson, and McClernand.
It was the second day of May, 1863, when I rode into Port Gibson, Miss., and inquired for Grant's headquarters. I found the general in a little house of the village, busily directing the advance of the army. He told me that in the battle of the day before the Confederates had been driven back on the roads to Grand Gulf and Vicksburg, and that our forces were now in full pursuit. By the next morning, May 3d, our troops had possession of the roads as far as the Big Black. As soon as he was sure of this, General Grant started with a brigade of infantry and some twenty cavalrymen for Grand Gulf. I accompanied him on the trip. When within about seven miles of Grand Gulf we found that the town had been deserted, and leaving the brigade we entered with the cavalry escort.
During this ride to Grand Gulf Grant made inquiries on every side about the food supplies of the country we were entering. He told me he had been gathering information on this point ever since the army crossed the Mississippi, and had made up his mind that both beef and cattle and corn were abundant in the country. The result of this inquiry was that here at Grand Gulf Grant took the resolve which makes the Vicksburg campaign so famous—that of abandoning entirely his base of supplies as soon as the army was all up and the rations on the way arrived, boldly striking into the interior, and depending on the country for meat and even for bread.
We did not reach Grand Gulf until late on May 3d, but at one o'clock on the morning of the 4th Grant was off for the front. He had decided that it was useless to bring up the army to this place, to the capture of which we had been so long looking, and which had been abandoned so quickly now that our army was across the Mississippi. I did not follow until later in the day, and so had an opportunity of seeing General Sherman. His corps was marching from above as rapidly as possible down to Hard Times landing, and he had come over to Grand Gulf to see about debarking his troops there; this he succeeded in doing a couple of days later.
That evening I joined Grant at his new headquarters at Hankinson's Ferry on the Big Black, and now began my first experience with army marching into an enemy's territory. A glimpse of my life at this time is given in a letter to a child, written the morning after I rejoined Grant:
"All of a sudden it is very cold here. Two days ago it was hot like summer, but now I sit in my tent in my overcoat, writing, and thinking if I only were at home instead of being almost two thousand miles away.
"Away yonder, in the edge of the woods, I hear the drum-beat that calls the soldiers to their supper. It is only a little after five o'clock, but they begin the day very early and end it early. Pretty soon after dark they are all asleep, lying in their blankets under the trees, for in a quick march they leave their tents behind. Their guns are all ready at their sides, so that if they are suddenly called at night they can start in a moment. It is strange in the morning before daylight to hear the bugle and drums sound the reveille, which calls the army to wake up. It will begin perhaps at a distance and then run along the whole line, bugle after bugle and drum after drum taking it up, and then it goes from front to rear, farther and farther away, the sweet sounds throbbing and rolling while you lie on the grass with your saddle for a pillow, half awake, or opening your eyes to see that the stars are all bright in the sky, or that there is only a faint flush in the east, where the day is soon to break.
"Living in camp is queer business. I get my meals in General Grant's mess, and pay my share of the expenses. The table is a chest with a double cover, which unfolds on the right and the left; the dishes, knives and forks, and caster are inside. Sometimes we get good things, but generally we don't. The cook is an old negro, black and grimy. The cooking is not as clean as it might be, but in war you can't be particular about such things.
"The plums and peaches here are pretty nearly ripe. The strawberries have been ripe these few days, but the soldiers eat them up before we get a sight of them. The figs are as big as the end of your thumb, and the green pears are big enough to eat. But you don't know what beautiful flower gardens there are here. I never saw such roses; and the other day I found a lily as big as a tiger lily, only it was a magnificent red."
Grant's policy now was to push the Confederates ahead of him up the Big Black River, threatening Jackson, the State capital, and the Big Black bridge behind Vicksburg, and capturing both if necessary. His opinion was that this maneuver would draw Pemberton out of Vicksburg and bring on a decisive battle within ten days.
From Hankinson's Ferry, the headquarters were changed on the 7th to Rocky Springs, and there we remained until the 11th. By that time McClernand and McPherson had advanced to within ten or twelve miles of the railroad which runs from Vicksburg to Jackson, and were lying nearly in an east and west line; and Sherman's entire corps had reached Hankinson's Ferry. Supplies which Grant had ordered from Milliken's Bend had also arrived. The order was now given to Sherman to destroy the bridge at Hankinson's Ferry, the rear guards were abandoned, and our communications cut. So complete was our isolation that it was ten days after we left Rocky Springs, on May 11th, before I was able to get another dispatch to Mr. Stanton.
This march toward Jackson proved to be no easy affair. More than one night I bivouacked on the ground in the rain after being all day in my saddle. The most comfortable night I had, in fact, was in a church of which the officers had taken possession. Having no pillow, I went up to the pulpit and borrowed the Bible for the night. Dr. H. L. Hewitt, who was medical director on Grant's staff, slept near me, and he always charged me afterward with stealing that Bible.
In spite of the roughness of our life, it was all of intense interest to me, particularly the condition of the people over whose country we were marching. A fact which impressed me was the total absence of men capable of bearing arms. Only old men and children remained. The young men were all in the army or had perished in it. The South was drained of its youth. An army of half a million with a white population of only five millions to draw upon, must soon finish the stock of raw material for soldiers. Another fact of moment was that we found men who had at the first sympathized with the rebellion, and even joined in it, now of their own accord rendering Grant the most valuable assistance, in order that the rebellion might be ended as speedily as possible, and something saved by the Southern people out of the otherwise total and hopeless ruin. "Slavery is gone, other property is mainly gone," they said, "but, for God's sake, let us save some relic of our former means of living."
In this forward movement the left of the army was ordered to hug the Big Black as closely as possible, while the right moved straight on Raymond. On the 12th, the right wing, under McPherson, met the enemy just west of Raymond. Grant at the time had his headquarters about at the center of the army, with Sherman's corps, some seven miles west of Raymond. I left him to go to the scene of the battle at once. It was a hard-fought engagement, lasting some three hours. McPherson drove the Confederates back to and through Raymond, and there stopped. The next day the advance of the army toward Jackson was continued. It rained heavily on the march and the roads were very heavy, but the troops were in the best of spirits at their successes and prospects. This work was a great improvement on digging canals and running batteries. On the afternoon of the 14th, about two and a half miles west of Jackson, McPherson and Sherman were temporarily stopped by the enemy, but he was quickly defeated, and that night we entered the capital of Mississippi.
At Jackson I received an important telegram from Stanton, though how it got to me there I do not remember. General Grant had been much troubled by the delay McClernand had caused at New Carthage, but he had felt reluctant to remove him as he had been assigned to his command by the President. My reports to the Secretary on the situation had convinced him that Grant ought to have perfect independence in the matter, so he telegraphed me as follows:
Washington, D.C., May 6, 1863.
C. A. Dana, Esq., Smith's Plantation, Ia.
General Grant has full and absolute authority to enforce his own commands and to remove any person who by ignorance in action or any cause interferes with or delays his operations. He has the full confidence of the Government, is expected to enforce his authority, and will be firmly and heartily supported, but he will be responsible for any failure to exert his powers. You may communicate this to him.
E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War.
The very evening of the day that we reached Jackson, Grant learned that Lieutenant-General Pemberton had been ordered by General Joe Johnston to come out of Vicksburg and attack our rear. Grant immediately faced the bulk of his army about to meet the enemy, leaving Sherman in Jackson to tear up the railroads and destroy all the public property there that could be of use to the Confederates. I remained with Sherman to see the work of destruction. I remember now nothing that I saw except the burning of vast quantities of cotton packed in bales, and that I was greatly astonished to see how slowly it burned.
On the afternoon of the 15th I joined Grant again at his headquarters at Clinton. Early the next morning we had definite information about Pemberton. He was about ten miles to the west, with twenty-five thousand men, as reported, and our advance was almost up with him. We at once went forward to the front. Here we found Pemberton in a most formidable position on the crest of a wooded ridge called Champion's Hill, over which the road passed longitudinally. About eleven o'clock in the morning of the 16th the battle began, and by four in the afternoon it was won.
After the battle I started out on horseback with Colonel Rawlins to visit the field. When we reached Logan's command we found him greatly excited. He declared the day was lost, and that he would soon be swept from his position. I contested the point with him. "Why, general," I said, "we have gained the day."
He could not see it. "Don't you hear the cannon over there?" he answered. "They will be down on us right away! In an hour I will have twenty thousand men to fight."
I found afterward that this was simply a curious idiosyncrasy of Logan's. In the beginning of a fight he was one of the bravest men that could be, saw no danger, went right on fighting until the battle was over. Then, after the battle was won, his mind gained an immovable conviction that it was lost. Where we were victorious, he thought that we were defeated. I had a very interesting conversation with Logan on this day, when he attempted to convince me that we had lost the battle of Champion's Hill. It was merely an intellectual peculiarity. It did not in the least impair his value as a soldier or commanding officer. He never made any mistake on account of it.
On leaving Logan, Rawlins and I were joined by several officers, and we continued our ride over the field. On the hill where the thickest of the fight had taken place we stopped, and were looking around at the dead and dying men lying all about us, when suddenly a man, perhaps forty-five or fifty years old, who had a Confederate uniform on, lifted himself up on his elbow, and said:
"For God's sake, gentlemen, is there a Mason among you?"
"Yes," said Rawlins, "I am a Mason." He got off his horse and kneeled by the dying man, who gave him some letters out of his pocket. When he came back Rawlins had tears on his cheeks. The man, he told us, wanted him to convey some souvenir—a miniature or a ring, I do not remember what—to his wife, who was in Alabama. Rawlins took the package, and some time afterward he succeeded in sending it to the woman.
I remained out late that night conversing with the officers who had been in the battle, and think it must have been about eleven o'clock when I got to Grant's headquarters, where I was to sleep. Two or three officers who had been out with me went with me into the little cottage which Grant had taken possession of. We found a wounded man there, a tall and fine-looking man, a Confederate. He stood up suddenly and said: "Kill me! Will some one kill me? I am in such anguish that it will be mercy to do it—I have got to die—kill me—don't let me suffer!" We sent for a surgeon, who examined his case, but said it was hopeless. He had been shot through the head, so that it had cut off the optic nerve of both eyes. He never could possibly see again. Before morning he died.
I was up at daylight the next day, and off with Grant and his staff after the enemy. We rode directly west, and overtook Pemberton at the Big Black. He had made a stand on the bottom lands at the east head of the Big Black bridge. Here he fought in rifle-pits, protected by abatis and a difficult bayou. Lawler's brigade, of McClernand's corps, charged the left of the Confederate rifle-pits magnificently, taking more prisoners than their own numbers. The others fled. Pemberton burned his bridge and retreated rapidly into Vicksburg, with only three cannon out of sixty-three with which he had entered upon this short, sharp, and decisive campaign.
There was nothing for Grant to do now but build bridges and follow. Before morning four bridges had been thrown across the Big Black, and by the evening of that day, the 18th, the army had arrived behind Vicksburg, which was now its front. In twenty-four hours after Grant's arrival the town was invested, the bluffs above the town had been seized so that we could get water from the Mississippi, and Haynes's Bluff up the Yazoo had been abandoned by the Confederates. With the Yazoo highlands in our control there was no difficulty in establishing a line of supplies with our original base on the Mississippi. On the 20th I was able to get off to Mr. Stanton the first dispatch from the rear of Vicksburg. In it I said, "Probably the town will be carried to-day."
The prediction was not verified. The assault we expected was not made until the morning of the 22d. It failed, but without heavy loss. Early in the afternoon, however, McClernand, who was on the left of our lines, reported that he was in possession of two forts of the rebel line, was hard pressed, and in great need of re-enforcements. Not doubting that he had really succeeded in taking and holding the works he pretended to hold, General Grant sent a division to his support, and at the same time ordered Sherman and McPherson to make new attacks. McClernand's report was false, for, although a few of his men had broken through in one place, he had not taken a single fort, and the result of the second assault was disastrous. We were repulsed, losing quite heavily, when but for his error the total loss of the day would have been inconsiderable.
The failure of the 22d convinced Grant of the necessity of a regular siege, and immediately the army settled down to that. We were in an incomparable position for a siege as regarded the health and comfort of our men. The high wooded hills afforded pure air and shade, and the deep ravines abounded in springs of excellent water, and if they failed it was easy to bring it from the Mississippi. Our line of supplies was beyond the reach of the enemy, and there was an abundance of fruit all about us. I frequently met soldiers coming into camp with buckets full of mulberries, blackberries, and red and yellow wild plums.
The army was deployed at this time in the following way: The right of the besieging force was held by General Sherman, whose forces ran from the river along the bluffs around the northeast of the town. Sherman's front was at a greater distance from the enemy than that of any other corps, and the approach less advantageous, but he began his siege works with great energy and admirable skill. Everything I saw of Sherman at the Vicksburg siege increased my admiration for him. He was a very brilliant man and an excellent commander of a corps. Sherman's information was great, and he was a clever talker. He always liked to have people about who could keep up with his conversation; besides, he was genial and unaffected. I particularly admired his loyalty to Grant. He had criticised the plan of campaign frankly in the first place, but had supported every movement with all his energy, and now that we were in the rear of Vicksburg he gave loud praise to the commander in chief.
To the left of Sherman lay the Seventeenth Army Corps, under Major-General J. B. McPherson. He was one of the best officers we had. He was but thirty-two years old at the time, and a very handsome, gallant-looking man, with rather a dark complexion, dark eyes, and a most cordial manner. McPherson was an engineer officer of fine natural ability and extraordinary acquirements, having graduated Number One in his class at West Point, and was held in high estimation by Grant and his professional brethren. Halleck gave him his start in the civil war, and he had been with Grant at Donelson and ever since. He was a man without any pretensions, and always had a pleasant hand-shake for you.
It is a little remarkable that the three chief figures in this great Vicksburg campaign—Grant, Sherman, and McPherson—were all born in Ohio. The utmost cordiality and confidence existed between these three men, and it always seemed to me that much of the success achieved in these marches and battles was owing to this very fact. There was no jealousy or bickering, and in their unpretending simplicity they were as alike as three peas. No country was ever more faithfully, unselfishly served than was ours in the Vicksburg campaign by these three Ohio officers.
To McPherson's left was the Thirteenth Army Corps, under Major-General John A. McClernand. Next to Grant he was the ranking officer in the army. The approaches on his front were most favorable to us, and the enemy's line of works evidently much the weakest there, but he was very inefficient and slow in pushing his siege operations. Grant had resolved on the 23d to relieve McClernand for his false dispatch of the day before stating that he held two of the enemy's forts, but he changed his mind, concluding that it would be better on the whole to leave him in his command till the siege was concluded. From the time that I had joined Grant's army at Milliken's Bend and heard him criticising Porter, Sherman, and other officers, I had been observing McClernand narrowly myself. My own judgment of him by this time was that he had not the qualities necessary for commander even of a regiment. In the first place, he was not a military man; he was a politician and a member of Congress. He was a man of a good deal of a certain kind of talent, not of a high order, but not one of intellectual accomplishments. His education was that which a man gets who is in Congress five or six years. In short, McClernand was merely a smart man, quick, very active-minded, but his judgment was not solid, and he looked after himself a good deal. Mr. Lincoln also looked out carefully for McClernand, because he was an Illinois Democrat, with a considerable following among the people. It was a great thing to get McClernand into the war in the first place, for his natural predisposition, one would have supposed, would have been to sympathize with the South. As long as he adhered to the war he carried his Illinois constituency with him; and chiefly for this reason, doubtless, Lincoln made it a point to take special care of him. In doing this the President really served the greater good of the cause. But from the circumstances of Lincoln's supposed friendship, McClernand had more consequence in the army than he deserved.