On the 24th of September the President issued an order creating the Department of the Tennessee and assigned to its command Major- General George H. Thomas; and the same day Buell was ordered to turn his command over to him and to retire to Indianapolis.(25) These orders were forwarded by Colonel McKibben, but not delivered until the 29th.(26) Buell immediately turned over his command to Thomas, but the latter, with his natural modesty, protested against accepting it in the emergency. Halleck suspended the order, and Buell again resumed command, announcing Thomas as second in command.(26)
More than a year elapsed before General Thomas was again given so important a command as the one he thus declined, and then he relieved Rosecrans and took command of the Army of the Cumberland when it was besieged by Bragg at Chattanooga. Thomas, though diffident to a degree, was one of our greatest soldiers. He served uninterruptedly from the opening to the close of the war, distinguishing himself in many battles, especially at Stone's River, at Chickamauga, on the Atlanta campaign (1864), and at Nashville, December 15 and 16, 1864. He was admired, almost adored, by the soldiers of the Army of the Cumberland, and he deserved their affection. His principal characteristics differed from those of Grant, Sherman, Meade, or Sheridan, who, though great soldiers, each differed in disposition, temper, and quality from the others. General Thomas, being a Virginian by birth, was at first expected and coaxed to go into the rebellion, then later he was abused and slandered by statements coming from the South to the effect that he had contemplated going with his State. There is no evidence that he ever wavered in his loyalty to the Union.
I had Grant's opinion of General Thomas as a commanding officer when I was making an official call on him at City Point, December 5, 1864, just at the time Hood was besieging Nashville. Grant had been urging Thomas to fight Hood and raise the siege, fearing, as Grant then said, Hood would cross the Cumberland and make a winter raid into Kentucky. Thomas refused to fight until fully ready. Grant, after inquiring of me about the roads and hills around the south of Nashville, of which I had acquired some knowledge in the spring and fall of 1862, said, somewhat impatiently:
"Thomas is a great soldier, and though able, at any time, with his present force to whip Hood, he lacks confidence in himself and the disposition to assume the offensive until he has seventy-five per centum of the chances of battle, in his own opinion, in favor of success."
Thomas was born July 31, 1816, and died in San Francisco, March 28, 1870. His body is buried at Troy, N. Y. Sherman, in command of the army, in announcing his death, said:
"The very impersonation of honesty, integrity and honor, he will stand to posterity as the beau-ideal of the soldier and gentleman. Though he leaves no child to bear his name, the old Army of the Cumberland, numbered by tens of thousands, called him father, and will weep for him in tears of manly grief."
I witnessed, in principal part, a great tragedy resulting from a quarrel between high officers of the Union Army. This occurred September 29, 1862, at the Galt House, Louisville, whither I had repaired to tender my resignation to Buell as Lieutenant-Colonel of the 3d Ohio Infantry, to enable me to accept promotion.
General Jeff C. Davis had been in command of a division under General William Nelson at Louisville, and had in some way incurred Nelson's censure. Nelson relieved him of command and ordered him to report to Wright, the department commander, at Cincinnati. Wright ordered Davis to return to Louisville and report to Buell for duty. Davis, being from Indiana, returned via Indianapolis, and from there was accompanied to Louisville by Governor Oliver P. Morton, who, with another friend, was with Davis in the vestibule of the Galt House about 9 A.M. when Davis accosted Nelson, demanding satisfaction for the injustice he claimed had been done him, and, it was said, at the same time flipped a paper wad in Nelson's face.(27) Nelson retorted by slapping Davis in the face with the back of his hand, and then, after denouncing Morton as Davis' "abettor of the deliberate insult," at once passed from the vestibule to adjoining hallway and started up the steps of a stairway, apparently going towards his room. He soon, however, returned to the hall and walked quietly in the direction of Davis. The latter meantime had obtained a pistol from his friend, and as Nelson approached fired on him, the bullet striking Nelson in the left breast, just over the heart, producing what proved, in half an hour, to be a mortal wound.(27) The incident was a deplorable one. Nelson was an able, valuable officer, and had proved himself such on many fields. He was known to be hasty, and sometimes unwarrantably rough in his treatment of others, yet he promptly repented of any act of injustice and made amends as far as possible. Davis was placed in military arrest by Buell, but later was released, by orders from Washington, to be allowed to become amenable to civil authority. Still later he was restored to the command of a division, then given a corps, and, by his gallantry, soldierly bearing, and general good conduct to the end of the war, atoned in some degree for the bloody deed.
My resignation was accepted on this memorable 29th of September, 1862, and thenceforth my official connection with my first regiment, its gallant officers and soldiers, and with the noble Army of the Ohio and the other great armies of the West, ceased, and forever, and not without the deepest regret, especially in parting from Colonel John Beatty, with whom I had, as more than a friend and companion, eaten and slept, marched and bivouacked, on the closest terms of confidence, without receiving from him an unkind or ungenerous word, for seventeen months, although he was my immediate superior officer, and we had both gone through many hardships and vexatious trials together. This was the more remarkable as we were each of sanguine temperament and obstinate by nature.
Beatty was appointed by President Lincoln a Brigadier-General of
Volunteers, November 29, 1862, and he thereafter, as before at
Perryville, especially distinguished himself at Stone's River and
Chickamauga. He has since served three terms in Congress with
distinction.