[CHAPTER VII.]
Mistakes.—Affair at Mansfield.—Peach Hill.—Freaks of the Imagination.—After Peach Hill.—General William Dwight.—Retreat to Pleasant Hill.—Pleasant Hill.—General Dick Taylor.—Taylor and the King of Denmark.—An Incident.
I think it was on the 20th of March that we left for the Red River. We marched the whole distance, arriving at Natchitoches about the 3d of April. From Alexandria to Natchitoches we followed the Red River. Here began our mistakes. Banks arrived from New Orleans, and ordered us to take the inland road to Shreveport. Franklin suggested the river road, where the army and the fleet could render mutual support. Banks said no; that the other was the shorter route. It was the shorter in distance, but for the greater part of the way it was a narrow wood road, unfitted for the march of troops and the movement of artillery and wagons. We marched two or three days without interruption. Lee, who commanded the cavalry in advance, had often applied for a brigade of infantry to support him. Franklin had always declined to separate his infantry, answering that if Lee found the enemy too strong for him, to fall back, and we would come up with the whole infantry force and disperse them. On the evening of the 6th of April, I think it was, Banks came up at Pleasant Hill, and assumed command. The next day we were beaten; for that evening Lee again applied for his infantry, and got them. Franklin sent in a written remonstrance against the danger of separating the infantry, and having it beaten in detail. He was disregarded; and we marched to certain defeat.
The battle of Sabine Forks—Mansfield, the rebels call it; and as they won it, they have a right to name it—scarcely rises to the dignity of a battle. We had our cavalry and one brigade of infantry only engaged. We lost heavily, however, in guns and wagons, for the wagon-train of the cavalry followed close upon its heels, and blocked up the narrow road, so that the guns could not be got off. When Franklin heard from Banks that the cavalry and infantry brigade were seriously engaged, and that he must send re-enforcements, he at once ordered Emory up with the First Division of the Nineteenth Corps, and then rode forward himself to the scene of action. Here he lost his horse and was wounded in the leg, while one of our staff officers was killed. When our cavalry and brigade were finally defeated, the rebels advanced upon us. It was a striking and beautiful sight to see a column of their best infantry—the "Crescent City Regiment," I think it was—marching steadily down the road upon us, while their skirmishers swarmed through the woods and cotton fields. The column offered so beautiful a mark for a shell or two, that the general rode up to a retreating gun, and tried hard to get it into position, but the stampede was too general, and we had to look to our own safety. When he found how things were likely to turn out, Franklin had sent an aid-de-camp to Emory with orders to select a good position, come into line, and check the advancing enemy. Meantime, we retreated, abandoning the road—it was too blocked up—and taking to the woods and across the cotton fields, not knowing our whereabouts, or whether we should land in the rebel lines or in our own. At length we caught sight of Emory's red division flag, and a joyful sight it was. We soon reached it, and found that "Bold Emory" had chosen an excellent position on the summit of a gentle eminence, called Peach Hill, and had already got his men into line. His division had behaved admirably. In face of cavalry and infantry retreating in disorder—and every officer knows how contagious is a panic—the First Division of the Nineteenth Army Corps steadily advanced, not a man falling out, fell into line, and quietly awaited the enemy. They did not keep us waiting long. In less than half an hour after we had joined the division, they appeared, marching steadily to the attack. But they were received with a fusillade they had not counted upon, and retreated in confusion. Again they attempted an attack on our right, but with no better success. They were definitively repulsed.
In this skirmish Franklin had another horse killed under him, shot in the shoulder, for the enemy's fire was very sharp for a few minutes. I offered him my horse, but he refused it. The captain of our head-quarters cavalry company offered him his, and he accepted it. The captain dismounted a private.
I saw here a striking instance of the effect produced by the imagination when exalted by the excitement of battle. A staff officer by my side dropped his bridle, threw up his arms, and said, "I am hit." I helped him from his horse. He said, "My boot is full of blood." We sent him to the ambulance. I said to myself, "Good-bye to —— I shall go to his funeral to-morrow." Next day he appeared at head-quarters as well as ever. He had been struck by a spent ball. It had broken the skin and drawn a few drops of blood, but inflicted no serious injury. At Port Hudson I saw the same effect produced by a spent ball. A man came limping off the field supported by two others. He said his leg was broken. The surgeon was rather surprised to find no hole in his stocking. Cutting it off, however, he found a black-and-blue mark on the leg—nothing more. The chaplain was reading to him, and the man was pale as death. I comforted him by telling him to send the stocking to his sweetheart as a trophy.
As we lay on our arms that night at Peach Hill without fire, for we were permitted to light none, lest we should reveal our small numbers to the enemy, we could hear distinctly the yells of the rebels as they found a fresh "cache" of the good things of the cavalry. It was very aggravating. They got our head-quarters ambulance too, but there was precious little in it. Expecting to bivouac, we had thrown a few things hastily into it. All they got of mine was a tooth-brush. I comforted myself with the reflection that they would not know what use to put it to.
Banks now sent for Franklin, and communicated to him his intention to remain on the battle-field all night, and renew the fight in the morning. Franklin represented that we had six thousand men at most, and the rebels thirteen thousand. Banks replied that A. J. Smith would be up. (Smith was thirteen miles in the rear, with eight thousand men.) "But how is he to get up, sir? The road is blocked up with the retreating troops and wagons, and is but a path, after all. He can't get up." "Oh! he'll be up—he'll be up;" and the interview ended. On his return to head-quarters, partly under a tree and partly on a rail fence, Franklin told me what had happened.
General William Dwight, of Boston, commanded the First Brigade of Emory's division. I knew Dwight well, for he had succeeded Sherman in command of our division at Port Hudson. I had recommended him highly to Franklin, when he was offered his choice of two or three generals for commands in the Nineteenth Corps, as an officer who could be thoroughly relied upon in an emergency. Dwight had said to me, "Major, if Franklin ever wants Banks to do any thing, and he won't do it, do you come to me." I thought that the time had arrived to go to him; so I found my way through the darkness. "Well, general, we've got to stay here all night, and fight it out to-morrow." Dwight, who is quick as a flash, and whose own soldierly instinct told him what ought to be done, said at once, "Does Franklin think Banks ought to fall back upon A. J. Smith?" "Yes, he does." "Then I'll be d—d if he sha'n't do it. Wait here a minute." Dwight disappeared in the darkness. In ten minutes he returned and said, "It's all right; the order is given."