MOVEMENT TO THE RED RIVER—CAMPAIGN AGAINST BANKS.
Recent events on the Mississippi made it necessary to concentrate my small force in the immediate valley of Red River. Indeed, when we lost Vicksburg and Port Hudson, we lost not only control of the river but of the valley from the Washita and Atchafalaya on the west to Pearl River on the east. An army of forty odd thousand men, with all its material, was surrendered in the two places, and the fatal consequences were felt to the end of the struggle. The policy of shutting up large bodies of troops in fortifications, without a relieving army near at hand, can not be too strongly reprobated. Vicksburg should have been garrisoned by not more than twenty-five hundred men, and Port Hudson by a thousand. These would have been ample to protect the batteries against a sudden coup, and forty thousand men added to General Joseph Johnston's force would have prevented the investment of the places, or at least made their loss of small moment.
After wasting three months in ineffectual attempts to divert the channel of the Mississippi, General Grant ran gunboats and transports by the batteries, and crossed the river below. Instead of meeting this movement with every available man, Pemberton detached General Bowen with a weak division, who successfully resisted the Federal advance for many hours, vainly calling the while for reënforcements. Pemberton then illustrated the art of war by committing every possible blunder. He fought a series of actions with fractions against the enemy's masses, and finished by taking his defeated fragments into the Vicksburg trap. It may be stated, however, that, had he acted wisely and kept out of Vicksburg, he would have been quite as much hounded as he subsequently was.
Grant's error in undertaking an impossible work cost him three months' time and the loss by disease of many thousands of his men. The event showed that he could as readily have crossed the river below Vicksburg at first as at last; but, once over, he is entitled to credit for promptly availing himself of his adversary's mistakes and vigorously following him. The same may be said of his first success at Fort Donelson on the Cumberland. The terror inspired by gunboats in the first year of the war has been alluded to; and at Fort Donelson General Grant had another potent ally. The two senior Confederate generals, politicians rather than warriors, retired from command on the approach of the enemy. One can imagine the effect of such conduct, unique in war, on the raw troops left behind. General Buckner, an educated soldier, was too heavily handicapped by his worthy superiors to make a successful defense, and General Grant secured an easy victory. "Among the blind, the one-eyed are kings."
General Grant's first essay at Belmont failed, and at Shiloh he was out-manœuvred and out-fought by Sidney Johnston, and, indeed, he was saved from destruction by Johnston's death. Before he moved against Bragg at Missionary Ridge, the latter had detached Longstreet with a third of his force, while he (Grant) reënforced Thomas with most of the Vicksburg army and two strong corps under Hooker from the east. The historian of the Federal Army of the Potomac states that, in reply to a question of General Meade, Grant said: "I never manœuvre"; and one has but to study the Virginia campaign of 1864, and imagine an exchange of resources by Grant and Lee, to find the true place of the former among the world's commanders. He will fall into the class represented by Marshal Villars and the Duke of Cumberland.
Genius is God-given, but men are responsible for their acts; and it should be said of General Grant that, as far as I am aware, he made war in the true spirit of a soldier, never by deed or word inflicting wrong on non-combatants. It would be to the credit of the United States army if similar statements could be made of Generals Sherman and Sheridan.
Released at length from the swamps of the Tensas, where it had suffered from sickness, Walker's division of Texas infantry joined me in the early autumn, and was posted to the north of Opelousas. Major-General J.G. Walker served as a captain of mounted rifles in the war with Mexico. Resigning from the United States army to join the Confederacy, he commanded a division at the capture of Harper's Ferry in 1862, and in the subsequent battle of Antietam; after which he was transferred to Arkansas. Seconded by good brigade and regimental officers, he had thoroughly disciplined his men, and made them in every sense soldiers; and their efficiency in action was soon established.
On the 29th of September Green, with his horse and a part of Mouton's brigade of Louisiana infantry, crossed the Atchafalaya at Morgan's Ferry, and attacked and routed the enemy on the Fordoche, capturing four hundred and fifty prisoners and two guns. Green lost a hundred in killed and wounded; the enemy, who fought under cover, less than half that number.
In October the Federals moved a large force of all arms up the Teche, their advance reaching the Courtableau. I concentrated for a fight, but they suddenly retired to the Bayou Bourbeau, three miles south of Opelousas, where they left a considerable body under General Burbridge. On the 3d of November Green, reënforced by three regiments of Walker's division, was ordered to attack them, and they were beaten with the loss of six hundred prisoners. This was the first opportunity I had had of observing the admirable conduct of Walker's men in action. Green's pursuit was stopped by the approach of heavy masses of the enemy from the south, who seemed content with the rescue of Burbridge, as they retired at once to the vicinity of New Iberia, fifty miles away. Green followed with a part of his horse, and kept his pickets close up; but one of his regiments permitted itself to be surprised at night, on the open prairie near New Iberia, and lost a hundred men out of a hundred and twenty-five. So much for want of discipline and over-confidence. General Banks's report mentions this capture, but is silent about Bourbeau.
The prisoners taken at the Bourbeau were marched to the Red River, where supplies could be had. The second day after the action, en route for Alexandria in an ambulance, I turned out of the road on to the prairie to pass the column, when I observed an officer, in the uniform of a colonel, limping along with his leg bandaged. Surprised at this, I stopped to inquire the reason, and was told that the colonel refused to separate from his men. Descending from the ambulance, I approached him, and, as gently as possible, remonstrated against the folly of walking on a wounded leg. He replied that his wound was not very painful, and he could keep up with the column. His regiment was from Wisconsin, recruited among his neighbors and friends, and he was very unwilling to leave it. I insisted on his riding with me, for a time at least, as we would remain on the road his men were following. With much reluctance he got into the ambulance, and we drove on. For some miles he was silent, but, avoiding subjects connected with the war, I put him at ease, and before Alexandria was reached we were conversing pleasantly. Impressed by his bearing and demeanor, I asked him in what way I could serve him, and learned that he desired to send a letter to his wife in Wisconsin, who was in delicate health and expecting to be confined. She would hear of the capture of his regiment, and be uncertain as to his fate. "You shall go to the river to-night," I replied, "catch one of your steamers, and take home the assurance of your safety. Remain on parole until you can send me an officer of equal rank, and I will look to the comfort of your men and have them exchanged at the earliest moment." His manly heart was so affected by this as to incapacitate him from expressing his thanks.