The Battle of Atlanta / and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc.

by Grenville Mellen Dodge

Address to the Army of the South-West
at National Encampment, G. A. R.
Washington, D. C.
October, 1902

My connection with the United States forces west of the Mississippi River commenced at the beginning of the war, when I took my Regiment, the Fourth Iowa, to St. Louis, and fell under the command of Fremont. I took part in the campaigns of that Department until after the Battle of Pea Ridge, when I left the command and went to the Army of the Tennessee. After the Atlanta campaign, in November, 1864, I returned to Missouri as commander of that Department and Army.

Of the transactions of the troops south of Missouri I have very little knowledge; but I know that the troops which served west of the Mississippi never had credit for the amount of work, hardships and exposures they endured. Owing to the fact of there having been fought there but two great battles, Wilson's Creek and Pea Ridge, and two minor ones, what they did was swallowed up in the great events that occurred east of the Mississippi. Even Pope's campaign opening up a portion of the Mississippi is hardly ever spoken of.

The Battle of Wilson's Creek, the first signal contest west of the Mississippi, was fought before my command reached St. Louis. The history of that battle, and the credit that is due to the commander of that Army, General Lyon, and his men, are well known. There participated in the battle many officers who were afterwards greatly distinguished; among them Schofield, Sturgis, Hunter, and others. It was the first battle that called attention to the West, and to the troops west of the Mississippi. That battle was lost because a portion of the command did not comprehend and fulfill General Lyon's orders. This mistake would have been overcome if it had not been for the loss in the battle of its commander, General Lyon. But the fighting of the troops and the boldness of the movement immediately attracted the attention of the country, and held it until after the battle of Pea Ridge.

The Army of the Southwest, which General Curtis commanded, and which traveled three hundred miles from its base without water or rail communication, and lived off a barren country, and which fought that decisive Battle of Pea Ridge and cleared the country until nearly the end of the war of any organized force of the enemy, had more marching and endured more suffering than the great Armies I was connected with east of the Mississippi, and its three days' fighting at Pea Ridge compared favorably with any of our battles, when the numbers engaged are considered.

Then again, at the end of the war, the sufferings of the troops that I took onto the plains in the Indian campaigns in the winters of 1864-5, 1865-6, were far beyond any of the sufferings of any of our Armies during the Civil War. Their exposures through the cold weather, and the brutalities and butcheries of the Indians, which it was impossible for them to avenge or retaliate, were beyond description.

Our early campaign in Missouri was without previous experience. It was simply one soldier standing up against another in battle, and we had to learn all the tricks of camp life, and from experience how to take care of our soldiers.

There were a great many funny incidents in the Pea Ridge campaign. The Southwestern Army was organized at Rolla, Missouri, of which post I was in command. My quartermaster was Captain Philip H. Sheridan, and my commissary, Captain M. P. Small. No one who knew or saw Sheridan then thought of the great position he was to occupy in our Army, but when he took hold of that Army and stripped it and fed it, three hundred miles away from rail or water communication, we all knew that his was a master-mind. When he came to me at Rolla, the first order he gave was to take away about three-quarters of our transportation. I think we had about two wagons to the company, and he brought us down to about four to a regiment. You can all appreciate the rebellion I had on my hands when I undertook to enforce his order. I know he stood by and watched to see what I was going to do. Every Regiment and Command entered a protest, and said some very unkind things of him, denouncing him as a regular officer who had no mercy upon a volunteer; but I had then had experience enough to appreciate our necessities, and started in by stripping my own Regiment, and then enforcing the orders upon the others. We were not long on that march before they appreciated the foresight of Sheridan. He had great energy and great resources. He had to run all the mills along our line of march; he had to forage in every direction, and the punishment that he gave to some of the people to make them tell where their horses, forage and sweet potatoes were hidden would astonish those of our people who have been so horrified at the mild persuasions used for similar purposes in the Philippines.

To show you how little we knew of war on our first march, in January, 1862, from Rolla to Springfield, Missouri, all the reports we had obtained were that Price and his Army were in Springfield. The troops of our Army were divided into two commands, those under Siegel, composed of two Divisions, commanded by Osterhaus and Asboth, mostly Germans, and two Divisions of Americans commanded by Colonel Jeff C. Davis and Colonel E. A. Carr. I commanded a Brigade on the extreme left in Carr's Division, and, in accordance with instructions, put out a company in front of me as skirmishers. It was dark, and impossible for us to see much, and the first thing I knew I had lost my skirmishers, and was in great distress until about daylight in the morning, when, while Siegel's guns and our own were booming away at Springfield, my company came back mounted on Confederate horses and mules—old hacks that the enemy had left behind them—and brought us news that there was no enemy in Springfield, and had not been for two or three days.

As we marched along towards Pea Ridge through the country, Price's Army faced us with a rear guard only, his main body keeping a long distance ahead of us. At every stream they would halt our advance, and move out a couple of pieces of their artillery, and put out a strong skirmish-line, which would force our Army into line, thinking we were going to have a battle. My Brigade led the advance most of the time on that march, and as soon as they would line up the officers would have the boys strip. They would throw down their chickens, sweet potatoes, and everything they had gathered, and by the time they had gone forward, and the enemy had run, the Thirty-sixth Illinois, or some other Regiment, would come up and gobble what they had left. About the third time we lined up I discovered that every boy was hanging on to his chickens, sweet potatoes, and provender, and when I gave orders to the Colonels to have them throw them aside, the boys made answer: "No you don't, Colonel! You can't fool us any more; we have fed those Thirty-sixth Illinois fellows as long as we propose to."