CHAPTER IX.
THE RETREAT FROM LENOIR'S AND THE BATTLE OF CAMPBELL'S STATION.
From October 22d to October 28th the Thirty-sixth Massachusetts was encamped at Loudon, but the enemy failed to appear. At half-past two o'clock, on the morning of the 28th, the baggage was sent across the river, the regiment followed, and the pontoons were taken up. The regiment then marched to Lenoir's, about twenty-three miles south-west of Knoxville, and halted for the night. On the following day orders were received to establish a permanent camp for the winter. Never was such an order more welcome. A year of varied and arduous toil was to be followed, it was supposed, by a season of grateful rest.
The place selected for the winter-quarters of the regiment was a thrifty young oak grove, nearly a quarter of a mile east of the little village of Lenoir's. The camp was laid out with unusual care. In order to secure uniformity throughout the regiment, the size of the log-houses—they were to be ten feet by six—was announced in orders from regimental head-quarters. The work of construction was at once commenced. Unfortunately we were so far from our base of supplies—Camp Nelson, Kentucky—that nearly all our transportation was required by the Commissary Department for the conveyance of its stores. Consequently the Quartermaster's Department was poorly supplied, and the only axes that could be obtained were those the pioneers and company cooks had brought with them for their own use. These, accordingly, were pressed into the service, and their merry ringing, as the men cheerfully engaged in the work, could be heard from early morning until evening. Small oaks, four and five inches in diameter, were chiefly used in building these houses. The logs were laid one above another, to the height of four feet, intersecting at the corners of the houses like the rails of a Virginia fence. The interstices were filled with mud. Shelter tents, buttoned together to the size required, formed the roof, and afforded ample protection from the weather, except in very heavy rains. Each house had its fireplace, table, and bunk.
On the 13th of November the houses were nearly completed throughout the camp; and as we sat by our cheerful fires that evening, and looked forward to the leisure and rest of the winter before us, we considered ourselves the happiest of soldiers. Unless something unforeseen should happen, we thought we were sure of a quiet and pleasant winter at Lenoir's.
That something unforeseen, however, was at hand, and our pleasant dreams were destined to fade away like an unsubstantial pageant, leaving not a rack behind. At four o'clock, on the morning of the 14th, the sergeant-major hurried to the officers' quarters with the order, "Be ready to march at daybreak." The order was at once repeated to the orderly sergeants of the several companies. Forthwith the camp was astir. Lights flashed here and there through the trees. "Pack up! pack up!" passed from lip to lip. "Shall we take everything?" was the eager inquiry on every hand. "Yes, everything," was the reply from head-quarters. Reluctantly the shelter-tents were stripped from the well-built houses, which were justly the pride of both officers and men. Knapsacks and trunks were packed. The wagon for the officers' baggage came, was hurriedly loaded, and driven away. A hasty breakfast followed; then, forming our line, we stacked arms, and awaited further orders.
The meaning of all this is not so dark now as it was then. Lieutenant-General Longstreet, who was in command of the best corps in Bragg's army at Chattanooga, received instructions, November 3d, at a counsel of war, to move his command against Burnside. Bragg's formal letter of instructions was dated November 4th, and on that day Longstreet put his troops in motion, with orders "to drive Burnside out of East Tennessee first; or, better, to capture or destroy him." He had with him more than fifteen thousand men, besides Wheeler's cavalry,—"portions of five brigades" (perhaps five thousand more),—and eighty pieces of artillery. General Grant, who at that time was mustering his forces for an assault on Bragg, at once was informed of the movement. As early as October 26th he had thought of the possibility of such a movement, and had telegraphed to Burnside, "Do you hear of any of Bragg's army threatening you from the south-west?" He now, November 5th, announced to Burnside the departure of Longstreet, saying, "I will endeavor, from here, to bring the enemy back from your right flank, as soon as possible." Accordingly, two days later, he ordered Thomas to attack Bragg. "The news is of such a nature," he said, in his order, "that it becomes an imperative duty for your force to draw the attention of the enemy from Burnside to your own front." But Thomas had no horses with which to move his artillery, and the attack was necessarily delayed. November 12th Burnside telegraphed to Grant: "We will endeavor to hold in check any force that comes against us, until Thomas is ready."
This force, under Longstreet, was close upon us. The next day, November 13th, Burnside ascertained that Longstreet had reached the Tennessee river at Hough's Ferry, a few miles below Loudon. He at once informed Grant, and proposed to concentrate his forces and fall back on Knoxville, so as to draw Longstreet as far from Bragg as possible. And this was the reason why we were so suddenly called to leave our comfortable winter-quarters at Lenoir's. Longstreet had thrown a pontoon across the river, and was moving across his entire command, except the cavalry under Wheeler, which he had sent by way of Marysville, with orders to seize the heights on the south bank of the Holston river, opposite Knoxville. Knoxville was Longstreet's objective. It was the key of East Tennessee. Should it fall into the enemy's hands we should be obliged to retire to Cumberland Gap. Lenoir's did not lie in Longstreet's path. If we remained there he would push his columns past our right, and get between us and Knoxville. It was evident, therefore, that the place must be abandoned, and there was need of haste. The mills and factories in the village were accordingly destroyed, and the wagon-train started north.
The morning had opened heavily with clouds, and as the day advanced the rain came down in torrents. A little before noon our division, then under the command of General Ferrero, moved out of the woods, but, instead of taking the road to Knoxville, as we had anticipated, the column marched down the Loudon road. Grant had telegraphed Burnside: "If you can hold Longstreet in check until Sherman gets up, or, by skirmishing and falling back, can avoid serious loss to yourself, and gain time, I will be able to force the enemy back from here, and place a force between Longstreet and Bragg that must inevitably make the former take to the mountain passes by every available road, to get to his supplies." We, then, were to watch the enemy, and so not only secure the safety of our trains and material, then on the way to Knoxville, but also to have a part in the great work Grant had undertaken in the campaign upon which he had just entered.