THE LIBERATION OF EAST TENNESSEE
News of Grant's victory at Vicksburg--A thrilling scene at the opera--Burnside's Ninth Corps to return--Stanton urges Rosecrans to advance--The Tullahoma manoeuvres--Testy correspondence--Its real meaning--Urgency with Burnside--Ignorance concerning his situation--His disappointment as to Ninth Corps--Rapid concentration of other troops--Burnside's march into East Tennessee--Occupation of Knoxville--Invests Cumberland Gap--The garrison surrenders--Good news from Rosecrans--Distances between armies--Divergent lines--No railway communication--Burnside concentrates toward the Virginia line--Joy of the people--Their intense loyalty--Their faith in the future.
During the Morgan Raid and whilst we in Ohio were absorbed in the excitement of it, events were moving elsewhere. Lee had advanced from Virginia through Maryland into Pennsylvania and had been defeated at Gettysburg by the National army under Meade. Grant had brought the siege of Vicksburg to a glorious conclusion and had received the surrender of Pemberton with his army of 30,000 Confederates. These victories, coming together as they did and on the 4th of July, made the national anniversary seem more than ever a day of rejoicing and of hope to the whole people. We did not get the news of Grant's victory quite so soon as that of Meade's, but it came to us at Cincinnati in a way to excite peculiar enthusiasm.
An excellent operatic company was giving a series of performances in the city, and all Cincinnati was at Pike's Opera House listening to I Puritani on the evening of the 7th of July. General Burnside and his wife had one of the proscenium boxes, and my wife and I were their guests. The second act had just closed with the famous trumpet song, in which Susini, the great basso of the day, had created a furore. A messenger entered the box where the general was surrounded by a brilliant company, and gave him a dispatch which announced the surrender of Vicksburg and Pemberton's army. Burnside, overjoyed, announced the great news to us who were near him, and then stepped to the front of the box to make the whole audience sharers in the pleasure. As soon as he was seen with the paper in his hand, the house was hushed, and his voice rang through it as he proclaimed the great victory and declared it a long stride toward the restoration of the Union. The people went almost wild with excitement, the men shouted hurrahs, the ladies waved their handkerchiefs and clapped their hands, all rising to their feet. The cheering was long as well as loud, and before it subsided the excitement reached behind the stage. The curtain rose again, and Susini came forward with a national flag in each hand, waving them enthusiastically whilst his magnificent voice resounded in a repetition of the song he had just sung, and which seemed as appropriate as if it were inspired for the occasion,--
"Suoni la tromba, e intrepido
Io pugnerò da forte,
Bello è affrontar la morte,
Gridando libertà!"
The rejoicing and the cheers were repeated to the echo, and when at last they subsided, the rest of the opera was only half listened to, suppressed excitement filling every heart and the thought of the great results to flow from the victories absorbing every mind.
Burnside reckoned with entire certainty on the immediate return of the Ninth Corps, and planned to resume his expedition into East Tennessee as soon as his old troops should reach him again. The Morgan raid was just beginning, and no one anticipated its final scope. In the dispatch from the Secretary of War which announced Grant's great victory, Burnside was also told that the corps would immediately return to him. In answering it on the 8th July, he said, "I thought I was very happy at the success of General Grant and General Meade, but I am still happier to hear of the speedy return of the Ninth Corps." He informed Rosecrans of it on the same day, adding, "I hope soon to be at work again." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii. pp.522, 524.]
The Washington authorities very naturally and very properly wished that the tide of success should be kept moving, and Secretary Stanton had exhorted Rosecrans to further activity by saying, on the 7th, "You and your noble army now have the chance to give the finishing blow to the rebellion. [Footnote: Id., p.518.] Will you neglect the chance?" Rosecrans replied: "You do not appear to observe the fact that this noble army has driven the rebels from middle Tennessee, of which my dispatches advised you. I beg in behalf of this army that the War Department may not overlook so great an event because it is not written in letters of blood." He, however, did not intimate any purpose of advancing. No doubt the manoeuvering of Bragg out of his fortified positions at Shelbyville and Tullahoma had been well done; but its chief value was that it forced Bragg to meet the Army of the Cumberland in the open field if the advantage should be promptly followed up. If he were allowed to fortify another position, nothing would be gained but the ground the army stood on. Had Rosecrans given any intimation of an early date at which he could rebuild the Elk River bridge and resume active operations, it would probably have relieved the strain so noticeable in the correspondence between him and the War Department. He did nothing of the kind, and the necessity of removing him from the command was a matter of every-day discussion at Washington, as is evident from the confidential letters Halleck sent to him. The correspondence between the General-in-Chief and his subordinate is a curious one. A number of the most urgent dispatches representing the dissatisfaction of the President and the Secretary were accompanied by private and confidential letters in which Halleck explains the situation and strongly asserts his friendship for Rosecrans and the error of the latter in assuming that personal hostility to himself was at bottom of the reprimands sent him on account of his delays. It was with good intentions that Halleck wrote thus, but the wisdom of it is very questionable. It gave Rosecrans ground to assume that the official dispatches were only the formal expression of the ideas of the President and Secretary whilst the General-in-Chief did not join in the condemnation of his dilatory mode of conducting the campaign. To say to Rosecrans, as Halleck did on July 24th, "Whether well founded or without any foundation, the dissatisfaction really exists, and I deem it my duty as a friend to represent it to you truly and fairly," [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii. pp. 552, 555, 601.] is to neglect his duty as commander of the whole army to express his own judgment and to give orders which would have the weight of his military position and presumed knowledge in military matters. When, therefore, a few days later he gave peremptory orders to begin an active advance, these orders were interpreted in the light of the preceding correspondence, and lost their force and vigor. They were met by querulous and insubordinate inquiries whether they were intended to take away all discretion as to details from the commander of an army in the field. [Footnote: Aug. 4, Id., p. 592.] It has been argued that Rosecrans's weakness of character consisted in a disposition to quarrel with those in power over him, and that a spirit of contradiction thwarted the good military conduct which his natural energy might have produced. I cannot help reading his controversial correspondence in the light of my personal observation of the man, and my conviction is that his quarrelsome mode of dealing with the War Department was the result of a real weakness of will and purpose which did not take naturally to an aggressive campaign that involved great responsibilities and risks. Being really indecisive in fixing his plan of campaign and acting upon it, his infirmity of will was covered by a belligerence in his correspondence. A really enterprising commander in the field would have begun an active campaign in the spring before any dissatisfaction was exhibited at Washington; and if he had a decided purpose to advance at any reasonably early period, there was nothing in the urgency shown by his superiors to make him abandon his purpose. He might have made testy comments, but he would have acted.
Halleck's correspondence with Burnside in July is hard to understand, unless we assume that it was so perfunctory that he did not remember at one time what he said or did earlier. In a dispatch to the General-in-Chief dated the 11th, Rosecrans had said, "It is important to know if it will be practicable for Burnside to come in on our left flank and hold the line of the Cumberland; if not, a line in advance of it and east of us." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxiii. pt. ii. p. 529.] It was already understood between Rosecrans and Burnside that the latter would do this and more as soon as he should have the Ninth Corps with him; and the dispatch must be regarded as a variation on the form of excuses for inaction, by suggesting that he was delayed by the lack of an understanding as to co-operation by the Army of the Ohio. On receipt of Rosecrans's dispatch, Halleck answered it on the 13th, saying, "General Burnside has been frequently urged to move forward and cover your left by entering East Tennessee. I do not know what he is doing. He seems tied fast to Cincinnati." On the same day he telegraphed Burnside, "I must again urge upon you the importance of moving forward into East Tennessee, to cover Rosecrans's left." [Footnote:Id., p. 531.] It is possible that Burnside's telegraphic correspondence with the Secretary of War was not known to Halleck, but it is hard to believe that the latter was ignorant of the proportions the Morgan raid had taken after the enemy had crossed the Ohio River. The 13th of July was the day that Morgan marched from Indiana into Ohio and came within thirteen miles of Cincinnati. Burnside was organizing all the militia of southern Ohio, and was concentrating two divisions of the Twenty-third Corps to catch the raiders. One of these was on a fleet of steamboats which reached Cincinnati that day, and the other, under Hobson, was in close pursuit of the enemy. Where should Burnside have been, if not at Cincinnati? If the raid had been left to the "militia and home guards," as Halleck afterward said all petty raids should be, this, which was not a petty raid, would pretty certainly have had results which would have produced more discomfort at Washington than the idea that Burnside was "tied fast to Cincinnati." Burnside was exactly where he ought to be, and doing admirable work which resulted in the capture of the division of 3000 rebel cavalry with its officers from the general in command downward. That the General-in-Chief was entirely ignorant of what was going on, when every intelligent citizen of the country was excited over it and every newspaper was full of it, reflects far more severely upon him than upon Burnside.