We did not leave our train, but after a short delay started again for Nashville. The crowded state of the road made frequent halts necessary, and when day broke we had made only eight miles. As we ran between the high hills, they were in their most gorgeous autumn dress; and, free from care, we enjoyed it all as a holiday outing, calling each other's attention to every new combination of mountain and river, and of changing schemes of brilliant color. It was the Presidential election-day, and in accordance with the provisions of the statutes, we opened the polls in my box car, and the officers and men voted at the halts of the train when they could get to the voting place. Colonel Doolittle of the Eighteenth Michigan, commandant of the post at Decatur, joined us at Stevenson, coming into my car to vote. From him we learned the details of Hood's attempt upon the Decatur post, and got interesting news, throwing light upon the situation before us. At my invitation he remained with us till we reached Nashville, and the acquaintance thus formed led to an arrangement for his temporary service with me after the battle of Franklin. As I wrote home, we voted by steam for "A. Linkum," seeing the end of the war manifestly approaching. The election for Ohio State officers had occurred in October when we were on the march after Hood, and at a noon halt we turned an ambulance into a polling booth in a grove on the banks of the Etowah River, where I voted with one of the Ohio regiments.
Our little October campaign had been a good example of what soldiers regard as pleasant work. There had been constant activity, with no severe fighting, and the weather had been, for the most part, magnificent. The rains had ceased at the end of the first week of the month, and from that time till we halted from our chase on the banks of the Coosa in the edge of Alabama we had a succession of bright, cool days, and comfortable nights. It had been like a hunt for big game on a grand scale, with excitement enough to keep everybody keyed up to a high pitch of physical enjoyment, ready for every call to bodily exertion. The foliage was ripening and changing in the equable autumnal airs without frost, and the results were often very surprising and very beautiful. The gum-tree [Footnote: Liquidambar Styraciflua.] is very common in the open fields of that part of Georgia, and each fine rounded mass had its own special tint, bright crimson, green-bronze, maroon, or pure green; and when a camp-fire was lighted in a grove of such trees the evening effect was a thing to remember for a lifetime. The regimental camps were all alive with diversions of different sorts from the time of the halt at the end of a march till tattoo sounded. Each had its trained pet animals, and the soldiers exhausted their skill and patience in teaching these varied tricks. One regiment had a pair of bull-terrier dogs that played a game which never failed to amuse. At a signal one of the dogs would seize a firebrand by the unburnt end and start off on a run through the camp; the other would follow at speed, trying to trip up the first, to collar him or push him over, and so force him to drop the brand. The second would then grasp it and the chase would be renewed, doubling in and out, over logs, or through a group of lounging men, scattering them right and left, the yelp of the chasing dog accompanying the blazing meteor as it cut odd figures in the darkness, and the shouting laughter of the men encouraging the dogs to new efforts to outdo each other. The intelligence of the dogs in playing the game with apparent recklessness, yet without getting burnt, was something wonderful.
I had myself an interesting experience with a beautiful little creature. Coming one day suddenly into my tent, I surprised a little gold and green lizard on my camp desk. The desk was a small portable one, with lid falling to make the writing-table, set on a trestle, and my appearance scared the little animal into a pigeon-hole, which it took for a way of escape. I sat down on my camp stool in front of the desk, and resumed my writing, watching, also, to see what my prisoner would do. Its little jewel eyes shone in the recess of its prison cell, and soon it cautiously came to the front; but the first move of my hand toward it made it dodge back into the darkness. Two or three times this was done, and I got no nearer to it; so I changed my tactics. I placed my hand against the next pigeon-hole, extending one finger over the occupied one, and waiting in perfect quiet for a few moments, my beauty came slowly forward over the paper files to the mouth of the pigeon-hole near my finger. With great caution and gentleness I stroked its head and it remained quiet. A few more strokes and it seemed pleased and rapidly grew tame. It ceased to be afraid of my motions, and did not try to get away. At intervals, as I sat, the acquaintance was renewed, and the little thing seemed to become fond of me, running about on my papers, climbing my arm to my shoulder, and running back to its home if any one entered the tent. In short, I had followed the example of the private soldiers and had a pet. When we marched I put it on my hat rim as I mounted my horse, thinking it would soon leave me; but it did not. It sat on my hat-crown like a most gorgeous aigrette, or took a little tour around the hat-band or down on my shoulders. I forgot it when busy, but it stayed by, and at the end of a march, when my tent was pitched again and my desk in the usual place, it resumed its home there and thrived on the flies it caught. It was with me for some weeks and became known at headquarters as an attache of the staff. The day we followed Hood westward from Resaca through Snake Creek Gap, I had dismounted, and was talking with General Whitaker, commanding a brigade in the Fourth Corps, whose men with mine were cutting out the timber blockade in the Gap. I had no thought of my lizard, but one of his orderlies caught sight of it on my shoulder. With the common prejudice among the soldiers that the harmless thing was a deadly poisonous reptile, he stood a moment staring and half transfixed, thinking me in deadly peril. Then, with a jump, he struck it off my shoulder with his open hand, and stamped it dead with his heavy boot heel, sure he had saved my life. But when one of my attendants exclaimed reproachfully, "There, you've killed the general's pet," the poor fellow slunk away, the picture of shame and remorse. Pets were sacred by the law of the camp, and he felt and looked as if he were a murderer. No doubt he was also stupefied at the idea that such a thing could be a pet, but in the matter of pets, as in some other things, he bowed to the law, "His not to reason why!"
NASHVILLE CAMPAIGN--HOOD'S ADVANCE FROM THE TENNESSEE
Schofield to command the army assembled at Pulaski--Forrest's Tennessee River raid--Schofield at Johnsonville--My division at Thompson's--Hastening reinforcements to Thomas--Columbia--The barrens--Pulaski--Hood delays--Suggests Purdy as a base--He advances from Florence--Our march to Columbia-Thomas's distribution of the forces--Decatur evacuated--Pontoon bridge there--Withdrawing from Columbia--Posts between Nashville and Chattanooga--The cavalry on 29th November--Their loss of touch with the army.
Our railway train reached Nashville in the forenoon of Wednesday the 9th of November, and I at once visited General Schofield to report my arrival and get further orders. He had himself reported to General Thomas by telegraph when we reached Calhoun on the last day of October, and Pulaski, eighty miles south of Nashville, had been given as the rendezvous for our corps with the Fourth. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. iii. p. 538.] Thomas was taking a cheerful view of the situation now that the Twenty-third Corps had been ordered to him, and on the 3d of November, in giving Sherman an outline of the progress of events, said that if Beauregard "does not move before Sunday (6th), I will have Schofield and Stanley together at Pulaski, and he can then move whenever he pleases." [Footnote: Id., p. 618.] Schofield got part of Cooper's division off on Thursday, with arrangements for the rest to follow, and took the railway train himself next day. Thomas's plans then were to send the troops through Nashville without stopping, but he asked Schofield to stop for a short consultation. [Footnote: Id., p. 624.] Without waiting for this, however, he issued his order on Friday, assigning Schofield to command the troops assembling at Pulaski to operate in front of that place. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxiv. pt. iii. p. 638.] This was a graceful act toward an officer of his own grade as a department commander, when as yet it was an open question whether the assignment by the President to command a department and army in the field gave precedence over officers in other organizations, senior in date of commission, but not so assigned. [Footnote: The matter has been decided in the affirmation by the War department and the decision had been transmitted in Halleck's letter to Sherman dated October 4th, but the interruption of communications had prevented its reaching Sherman for some time, and Thomas had not received it when he made the order. For the whole discussion and correspondence, see Id., vol. xxxviii. pt. v. pp. 734, 753, 797; vol. xxxix. pt. iii. pp. 64, 638, 666, 684, 685, 691, 692, 703, 704; vol. xlv. pt. i. p. 959.]
When Schofield reached Nashville on the 5th, he found Thomas busy with a new problem. Forrest had set for him by his raid down the Tennessee valley on the west side. A gunboat had been captured, and demonstrations opposite Johnsonville by the raiders had been followed by the unnecessary destruction of a fleet of transports, three gunboats at the landing, and vast quantities of stores. [Footnote: Id., vol. xxxix. pt. i. p. 861, 864, 866.] The place was the terminus of a railway from Nashville to the Tennessee River, and was an intermediate depot of supplies in a low stage of water in the rivers. At other times steamboats could ascend the Cumberland all the way to Nashville. The exaggerated reports of the enemy's force and apparent purpose to cross the river there made Thomas think it wise to modify his plans for the moment, and he ordered Schofield to proceed at once to Johnsonville with the two brigades of the Twenty-third Corps then in hand, Moore's and Gallup's, intending to concentrate the whole corps there as fast as they should come from Georgia. [Footnote:Id., vol. xxxix. pt. iii. p. 647.]
As soon as Sherman could decipher Thomas's dispatches, he warned the latter of the danger of a false move, as only Forrest's cavalry was down the river, and Hood's army was known to be at Florence. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxix. pt. iii. p. 647.] When Schofield got to Johnsonville, he soon saw the real state of affairs, and advised Thomas that the two brigades were enough. He instructed General Cooper as to improving the defences of the town, and returned to Nashville on the 7th. Next day he made a hurried visit to Pulaski to examine the situation there, [Footnote: Id., p. 708.] where was now the railway terminus of the line to Decatur, the bridges and trestles about Athens having been destroyed by Forrest in his September raid. He got back to Nashville before day on the 9th, and was ready to meet me on my arrival there. From him I got full information of the situation, and orders to take my division to Columbia, where he expected to join me in two or three days.