Whilst we were in conference, reports came in from General Willcox, who had been left in command of the Ninth Corps at Strawberry Plains, that the enemy were pressing him rather vigorously. Word came also from General Spears that hostile infantry and cavalry had appeared in large force at Blain's Cross-roads. Sturgis also reported from the direction of Sevierville that the whole rebel army had gone to Strawberry Plains. [Footnote: Id., pp. 163, 174.] Toward evening of the 22d our troops had come within some five or six miles of Knoxville, but the enemy showed so strong a disposition to attack that Foster ordered me to return to the front, take command of both corps (Ninth and Twenty-third) and of the cavalry with them, and check the Confederates, as there was some danger that our troops would change the concerted movement into a precipitate retreat. General Parke was suffering in health from recent exposure and remained in Knoxville. Galloping out from the town, I reached the troops a little before dark, halted them, and by a personal reconnoissance satisfied myself that only cavalry were before us. Our men had passed some wooded hills which were important to cover our position and give a starting-point for an aggressive movement on our part. Reversing their movement, I reoccupied these hills, brusquely driving back the enemy's advance-guard and checking their main body. It was now dark, and putting our forces in line of battle ready for an advance at daybreak, they were allowed to bivouac for the night, whilst I rode rapidly back to Knoxville, in accordance with my arrangement with General Foster to report to him in person the particulars of the situation. He approved my suggestion that I should advance the whole line in the morning and settle the question what force was before us. The wagons had come into the town, and my headquarters with them; so taking each of us a blanket, myself and the two staff officers who had accompanied me (Colonel Sterling and my brother) rode back again at midnight to the front, and rested till daybreak on the rough floor of a log cabin. The line then was advanced, but the enemy had taken the hint from the preparations of the evening and had decamped. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 184.] Detachments went in pursuit some eight miles, but the Confederates had definitely withdrawn, and we obtained conclusive proof that only their cavalry had followed us across the Holston River.
The interrupted movement toward Knoxville was resumed, but it required me to remain another night in roughest bivouac, and another day without food, except as a mouthful could be found at hazard. I had begun the Dandridge movement with a cold which threatened pneumonia, but had grown steadily better through all the exposure, finding, as often happened to me in the course of the war, that the physical and mental stimulus of active campaigning even in the worst of weather was tonic and health-giving.
As soon as the situation was cleared up by trustworthy information of Longstreet's movements, General Foster resumed his plans for winter quarters. His first intention of sending the Fourth Corps toward Sevierville was modified by Grant's directions to put that corps where it could most readily rejoin the Army of the Cumberland. He therefore ordered me to move the Twenty-third Corps in that direction, and formally united to the corps the brigade of East Tennessee troops under Brigadier-General James G. Spears, which had theretofore been an independent organization. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 162.] Sturgis, who had marched with most of the cavalry on the route thus assigned to me, reported that the road was the worst he ever saw, and, with all the experience of bad roads we had had, this meant that it was impracticable for our few and weak teams. [Footnote:Ibid.] This put an end to all hope of living on the country, and Foster accepted the necessity of distributing his troops about Knoxville and along the lines leading to Chattanooga.
On the 22d of January orders were issued assigning the Fourth Corps to quarters extending from Kingston to Loudon along the river and railroad. The Ninth Corps took post between Campbell's Station and Knoxville. The Twenty-third Corps encamped at Knoxville and in the immediate vicinity. [Footnote: Id., p. 183.] The cavalry occupied the country southeast of the Holston holding a front on the French Broad River. A few small outposts further up the valley were maintained for observation.
A brilliant cavalry combat near Sevierville on the 27th ended the active work under General Foster's command. Longstreet, hearing of the presence of our cavalry south of the French Broad, directed General Martin, commanding his cavalry corps, to get his forces across the river and meet Sturgis at once. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxii. pt. ii. p. 611.] The latter had McCook's division in advance, supported by Garrard's near Pigeon River. Martin advanced upon McCook, but was surprised to find his adversary seize the initiative. Learning of the Confederate advance, McCook marched to meet them on the road leading to Fair Garden. Martin was driven back, his right (Morgan's division) being routed by a gallant charge led by Colonel La Grange, First Wisconsin Cavalry, who commanded a brigade. [Footnote: Id. pt. i. pp. 139, 141.] Two regimental commanders, seven other commissioned officers, over a hundred privates, and two pieces of artillery were captured by the charge. General Morgan's battle-flag was also among the trophies. Our own casualties amounted to only thirty-one. Martin beat a hasty retreat across the French Broad to Dandridge, and Longstreet frankly admitted Martin's defeat with a loss of 200 men and the two guns. [Footnote:Id. pp. 149-150.] He attributed it to the inefficiency of his cavalry commander, and urged that one more competent be sent him. [Footnote: Idpt. ii. p. 632.] Sturgis followed on the 28th to Fair's Island Ford near Dandridge, where he was met by Armstrong's division of the Confederates. Longstreet now passed over an infantry force in rear of our cavalry, and they fell back to Maryville. [Footnote: Id., p. 653.] Both parties found the winter work too costly, and were now glad to take a few weeks for rest and recuperation.
As my headquarters were assigned to Knoxville, I had the opportunity of increasing my knowledge of the people and of the social complications which grew out of the war. I found quarters for myself and Lieutenant Theodore Cox, my aide, at the house of Mr. Cowen, a young merchant of the city, whose father was one of the prominent business men. The house was on the north side of a suburban street running parallel to the river, and not far from the buildings of the East Tennessee University, which were partially fortified and connected with Fort Sanders by a line of infantry trench. The fields on the opposite side of the road were open, and sloped down to the river bank, and in these my headquarters guard pitched their tents and the general quarters of the staff were also placed. A near neighbor, in the direction of the college, was the Rev. Dr. Humes, rector of the Episcopal parish, and after the war President of the University. General Burnside had spoken of him as a noble man, of devoted loyalty as well as earnest piety, and I was glad to know him as one who by his high intelligence and character was an authority on all that related to Holston valley. [Footnote: Thomas W. Humes, S.T.D. He has, since the war (1888), published a volume devoted to the East Tennessee loyalists, entitled "The Loyal Mountaineers of Tennessee.">[ John Williams, John M. Fleming, and O. P. Temple were among those who represented the Union sentiment of Knoxville, as did Perez Dickinson among the merchants. [Footnote: Since this chapter was written, Chancellor Temple has contributed a valuable work to the history of the Rebellion, in his "East Tennessee and the Civil War," Cincinnati. 1899.] John Baxter, afterward Judge of the United States Circuit Court, was a strong and wise friend of the government. Horace Maynard represented the district in Congress both before and after the war, and was regarded at Washington as its official representative even in the period when the Confederate occupation made him an exile from his home. William G. Brownlow was in Knoxville also, having returned as soon as our army had opened the way. His son, "Colonel Jim," was doing gallant service at the head of the First East Tennessee Cavalry. Around this group of leading men were arrayed the great majority of the people, devoted in their attachment to the Union. The men of property among them had sometimes been forced to dissimulate in order to protect their persons and their possessions; but now that the National army was in the valley, there was no mistaking the earnest satisfaction and the hearty sympathy of these people. There was a minority who had been open Secessionists, and these had been influential beyond their numbers, by reason of their wealth and social standing; for here, as well as everywhere else in the South, owners of slaves easily became champions of the extreme doctrines of what they called the constitutional guaranty of their property. They claimed to include most of the "upper class" in their numbers, though this was by no means true in this region.
The feelings of both Union men and Secessionists were very bitter, and social life was as strongly marked by these divisions as the hostile camps. The number of slaves was comparatively small, but they were the house servants in the towns, and their disposition to assert their liberty added to the social turmoil. The mistress of the house where I lodged hired her cook from a neighbor who claimed the woman as a slave; but the employer found herself obliged to make another bargain with the cook, and to pay her a second wage in order to keep her at work at all. The Unionists of East Tennessee were not yet fully advanced to the emancipation of the slaves as a result of the war. Parson Brownlow had fiercely denounced the Secessionists for arguing that secession was necessary to preserve property in slaves. Our army commanders thought it prudent not to agitate this question, and contented themselves with keeping within the limits of the statutes and the general orders of the War Department, which forbade military interference to return fugitives to the masters or to compel their obedience. The matter was left to work itself out, as it rapidly did.
After the first of February the weather became settled and gave us a more favorable opinion of the East Tennessee climate. We had sharp frosts at night with occasional light flurries of snow, but the days were usually bright, it thawed about midday, and the average temperature was such as to make active exercise delightful. The summits of the Great Smoky Mountains were covered with snow, and made a picturesque framing for the natural loveliness of the valleys. The roads were nowhere metalled, and the alternate freezing and thawing made them nearly impassable; but if we had been able to bring forward proper forage and supplies, we should have overcome the other obstacles to active campaigning. As it was, we could only await the approach of spring, when the settling of the roads and the opening of railroad communication with Chattanooga and Nashville would make it possible to bring back from Kentucky and feed our horses which had been sent to the rear.
There was, beside, the question of the change necessary in the command of the department, since there was no probability that General Foster's health would permit him to retain it and he had urgently requested that his successor should be assigned to duty. Indeed, the question of organization reached down to the regiments and brigades, and was a burning one in all the armies of Grant's Military Division. Besides this, the revival of the grade of Lieutenant-General was already mooted in Congress, and it was nearly a foregone conclusion that Grant would have the command of all the armies and the task of co-ordinating their movements. Our little army in East Tennessee was agitated not only with the speculations as to our new commander, but with debates as to our probable part in the next campaign, and the forces which would be given to us with which to do our work. Would the Ninth Corps remain in the department, or would it be ordered to the East for duty under Burnside, as was already rumored? Would our task be simply to garrison East Tennessee; should we make Longstreet's army our objective and follow him into Virginia; or should we be united to Sherman's and Thomas's armies for a campaign in Georgia? We eagerly listened for every hint which might be dropped at headquarters, but Grant's proverbial reticence left us to our conjectures, and each question was answered only when official orders were finally published. Much that was very blind to us is now easily traced in the Official Records.
When General Foster informed the War Department that the opening of his old wound made it necessary to relieve him of command in East Tennessee, the President was in some perplexity in regard to several prominent officers. He was disposed to find some adequate employment for Rosecrans, who was still backed by a very strong political coterie in Washington. He was convinced that injustice had been done Burnside, and was thinking of sending him with the Ninth Corps, largely increased in numbers, to his old field of successful work on the Carolina coast. The opposition of influential politicians of Kansas and Missouri to Schofield, whose confirmation as major-general was still obstructed in the Senate, he felt as a personal hostility to himself. Grant was also desirous of suitable assignments to command for McPherson, W. F. Smith, and Sheridan. The almost certain passage of the bill to give a higher grade in the army, and the assumption that Grant would be promoted to it, gave the opportunity to make a satisfactory arrangement of all these cases. Burnside's return to active work and the removal to the East of the Ninth Corps were determined on, with General Parke's return, at his own desire, to the position of Burnside's chief of staff. McPherson was to take the Army of the Tennessee when Sherman should be promoted to the command of the Military Division of the Mississippi. Smith and Sheridan were to have high assignments in the Eastern army. Rosecrans was sent to Missouri, and Schofield, to his great content, was appointed to command the Army of the Ohio. These changes were gradually shaped in the correspondence of Grant with army headquarters during the fall and winter. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. pp. 122, 277, 458, 529, 571; vol. xxxii. pt. ii. pp. 79, 80, 182, 202, 209, 229, 230, 251, 336; also a curious letter of Hooker to Stranton, id., pp. 467-469. See also Schofield's "Forty-six Years in the Army," pp. 108-110. I have treated these changes more in detail in chapter vii. of Force's "General Sherman" (Great Commanders' series). See preface of the work last named.] They were followed by others in the corps divisions and brigades, so that the organization of all the Western armies took permanent form before Grant was called to Washington to assume his new rank at the beginning of March.