Forty-Six Years in the Army

by John McAllister Schofield

THE CORRESPONDENCE WITH GENERAL THOMAS

It is necessary to exclude from this statement of troops available for service in middle Tennessee those in Kentucky and East Tennessee, belonging to the Department of the Ohio, for the reason that just at that time unusual demand was made upon those troops for service in East Tennessee, where some of the State forces had met with disaster. This probably accounts in part for the discrepancies in General Sherman's estimates referred to later.

Hood's forces were then understood by General Thomas to consist of from 40,000 to 45,000 infantry and artillery, and 10,000 to 12,000 cavalry, including Forrest's command. I find from General Sherman's despatch to Thomas, dated October 19, that his estimate of Hood's strength, October 19, 1864, was about 40,000 men of all arms.

I do not find in General Thomas's report or despatches any exact statement of his own estimate; but the following language in his official report of January 20, 1865, seems quite sufficiently explicit on that point: "Two divisions of infantry, under Major- General A. J. Smith, were reported on their way to join me from Missouri, which, with several one-year regiments then arriving in the department, and detachments collected from points of minor importance, would swell my command, when concentrated, to an army nearly as large as that of the enemy. Had the enemy delayed his advance a week or ten days longer, I would have been ready to meet him at some point south of Duck River. . . . "

This must of course be accepted as General Thomas's own estimate of the enemy's strength, on which his own action was based. And it should be remembered that military operations must be based upon the information then in possession of the commander, and just criticism must also be based upon his action upon that information, and not upon any afterward obtained.

General Sherman estimated the force left with Thomas ( 1) at about 45,000 (exclusive of the Fourth and Twenty-third Corps, and Smith's corps coming from Missouri), in which he included about 8000 or 10,000 new troops at Nashville, and the same number of civil employees of the quartermaster's department. The Fourth and Twenty- third corps he estimated at 27,000 men, and Smith's at 10,000, and the cavalry in the field at 7700. All this was sufficiently accurate if no account were taken of men unfit for duty or not equipped. But the official returns show that the number of officers and men present for duty equipped amounted to 49,322 in the department, and in the two corps in the field to 24,265, and in the cavalry in the field, to 4800. There were therefore the following discrepancies in Sherman's estimate, due in part to the discharge of men whose terms had expired, as well as to the usual number of men not equipped for duty in the ranks: In the troops in the department, a discrepancy of 8000; in the army corps in the field, 2735; in the cavalry in the field, 2900 ( 2)—a total discrepancy of 13,635. That is to say, Sherman's own estimate was in excess of Thomas's actual strength by a force greater than either of the two army corps he sent back to help Thomas. If he had sent back another large corps,—say the Fourteenth, 13,000 strong, having besides the moral strength due to the fact that it was Thomas's old corps,—the discrepancy in his own estimate would doubtless have been sufficiently overcome, and the line of Duck River at least, if not that of the Tennessee, as Sherman had assured Grant, would have been securely held until A. J. Smith arrived and Thomas could assume the offensive.

Hood's force was ready to invade Tennessee in one compact army, while Thomas then had in the field ready to oppose it a decidedly inferior force, even admitting the lowest estimate made of that hostile army.

THE UNTENABLE POSITION AT PULASKI

The superiority of the enemy's cavalry made it necessary that the garrisons of all essential posts and the guards of important railroad bridges should be strong enough to resist attack from a large force of dismounted cavalry and light artillery, so long as Thomas was compelled to remain on the defensive. The records of that time indicate that Thomas then appreciated, what mature consideration now confirms, that if Hood's advance had induced him (Thomas) to draw off sufficient troops from garrisons and railroad guards to enable him to give battle on equal terms to Hood at Pulaski or Columbia, a raid by Hood's cavalry would probably have resulted in the destruction or capture of nearly everything in the rear, not only in Tennessee, but also in Kentucky, except perhaps Nashville and Chattanooga. It was only wise forethought which suggested that such might be the nature of Hood's plans, especially in view of the season of the year and the condition of the roads, which made aggressive operations of a large army, where all the hard roads were held by the opposing forces, extremely difficult. The official returns, now published in the War Records,( 3) show that the troops were sufficient only for the purpose of garrisons and guards and defensive action in the field until after the arrival of A. J. Smith; and this is true even if Hood's cavalry force was no larger than that which now appears from Forrest's report—5000; for Forrest might easily have got a day or two the start of his pursuer at any time, as had often been done on both sides during the war.

It is true that Sherman's instructions to Thomas appear to have contemplated the possibility, at least, that Thomas might be reduced to the extreme necessity of holding Nashville, Chattanooga, and Decatur defensively, even during a long siege, and of abandoning all points of less importance than the three named, so that all the garrisons of such minor points and all the railroad guards might be concentrated with the garrisons of these three important strategic points, for their defense during a siege. This must of course have referred to the defensive period of the campaign only, for the moment that Thomas's reinforcements should enable him to assume the offensive all the necessities above referred to must have disappeared. It must, I think, be admitted as beyond question that, in view of his daily expectation of the arrival of A. J. Smith's troops from Missouri, Thomas was perfectly right in not acting upon Sherman's suggestion of extreme defensive action, and thus abandoning his railroad to destruction.