Thirteen months in the Rebel Army

by William G. Stevenson

On Sunday the advance of the Bowling Green army began to come in, and those who escaped from Donelson on Tuesday. The appearance of these retreating forces increased the panic among the people, and as the troops came in the non-combatants went out. By the 20th, all who could get away were gone, and none but the military were prominent in the streets, and the sick and wounded were sent southward. The main body of the army camped on the Nashville side of the river. Work was suspended on two fine gunboats in process of construction, and orders given to be ready for their destruction at a moment's notice. The railroad bridge was also prepared for the same fate.

In the mean time the citizens, believing that General Johnson would make a stand, commenced a fortification, four miles from the city, on the south side of the Cumberland, for the purpose of resisting the advance of the gunboats. When it was announced that no defence would be made, the people were highly indignant, because the suddenness of this decision left the citizens no time for the removal of their remaining goods. As the Confederate authorities could not remove all their commissary stores, the warehouses were thrown open, and the poor came and carried off thousands of dollars' worth. Some of these people subsequently set up boarding-houses and fed Union soldiers from the provisions thus obtained.

At length the railroad bridge and the gunboats were burned, and the suspension bridge cut down. An act of pure vandalism was this last, as it neither aided the Rebel retreat nor delayed the Federal advance. Curses against General Floyd and Governor Harris were loud and deep for this act, and General A.S. Johnson never recovered the reputation lost during this retreat.

My company was constantly on scout duty, guarding the roads on the north side of the river, protecting the rear of the retreating hosts, and watching for the coming of Buell's advance. This whole retreat, from Bowling Green to Corinth, a distance of nearly three hundred miles as traveled by the army, and occupying six weeks, was one of the most trying that an army was ever called upon to perform in its own country and among friends. The army was not far from 60,000 strong, after General George B. Crittenden's forces were added to it at Murfreesboro. The season of the year was the worst possible in that latitude. Rain fell, sometimes sleet, four days out of seven. The roads were bad enough at best, but under such a tramping of horses and cutting of wheels as the march produced, soon became horrible. About a hundred regiments were numbered in the army. The full complement of wagons to each regiment—twenty-four—would give above two thousand wagons. Imagine such a train of heavily loaded wagons, passing along a single mud road, accompanied by 55,000 infantry and 5000 horsemen, in the midst of rain and sleet, day after day, camping at night in wet fields or dripping woods, without sufficient food adapted to their wants, and often without any tents, the men lying down in their wet clothes, and rising chilled through and through; and let this continue for six weeks of incessant retreat, and you get a feeble glimpse of what we endured. The army suffered great loss from sickness and some from desertion; some regiments leaving Bowling Green with six or seven hundred men, and reaching Corinth with but half of this number. The towns through which we passed were left full of sick men, and many were sent off to hospitals at some distance from our route.

One of the most desperate marches men were ever called to encounter, was performed by General Breckenridge's division between Fayetteville and Huntsville. They moved at ten a.m., and marched till one o'clock next morning, making thirty miles over a terrible road, amid driving rain and sleet during the whole time. The reason for this desperate work was, that a day's march lay between the rear-guard and the main body of General Johnson's army, and there was danger that it would be cut off. It cost the general hundreds of men. One-fourth of the division dropped out of the ranks unable to proceed, and were taken up by the guard, until every wagon and ambulance was loaded, and then scores were deserted on the road, who straggled in on following days, or made their way back to their homes in Tennessee or Kentucky.

This retreat left a good deal of desolation in its track; for although the officers endeavored to restrain their men, yet they must have wood; and where the forest was sometimes a mile from the camping ground, and fences were near, the fences suffered; and where sheep and hogs abounded when we came, bones and bristles were more abundant after we left. Horses were needed in the army; and after it left, none were seen on the farms. And then the impressed soldiers, judging from my own feelings, were not over-scrupulous in guarding the property of Rebels. The proud old planters, who had aided in bringing on the rebellion, were unwillingly compelled to bear part of its burdens.

This long and disastrous retreat was rendered a necessity as soon as Fort Henry, on the Tennessee river, was taken by the Federal forces, as this river was opened, and they could throw an army in the rear of the Confederates as far south as Florence, in Alabama, within a few days. Indeed the Confederate officers expected this, and wondered that the Federals failed to do it immediately, as this movement would have cut off Johnson's retreat, and have forced him to surrender, fight, or escape eastward through Knoxville, giving up the whole West to the loyal forces. The delay of the United States forces to take Fort Donelson allowed General A. Sidney Johnson to reach Corinth by March. Here General Beauregard, in command of the army of the Mississippi valley, and already there in person, determined to make a stand.

Great difference of opinion existed among Southern officers as to the expediency of this retreat. Many, among whom were Generals Breckenridge, Hindman, and Bowen, counseled to assume the offensive, and make a bold dash upon Louisville, Ky. This became the general opinion subsequently; and had it been adopted as the policy in the beginning, would have given a different phase to the war in the West, at least for a time.

A ludicrous scene occurred at this time, illustrating the liability to panic to which even brave men are sometimes subject. While resting at Murfreesboro, of course we were liable to be overtaken by Buell's cavalry, and as Colonel Morgan was not a man to be caught asleep, he kept scouting parties ever on the alert, scouring the country on different roads for miles in the direction of the Federal army. I was in command of a squad of eight men, with whom I made a long and rapid march in the direction of Lebanon, and when returning by a different route, night overtook us some fifteen miles from camp. After getting supper at a farm-house, we were again in the saddle at ten o'clock of a calm, quiet evening, with a dim moon to light us back to camp. We jogged on unsuspicious of danger, as we were now on the return from the direction of the Federal cavalry. Within ten miles of camp, near midnight, we passed through a lane and were just entering a forest, when we became aware that a cavalry force was approaching on the same road; but who they were, or how many, we had no idea. We were not expecting another party of our men in this direction, and yet they could hardly be Federals, or we would have heard of them, as we had been near their lines, and among the friends of the Southern cause.

Acting on the principle that it is safer to ask than to answer questions in such circumstances, I instantly ordered them to "Halt," and asked, "Who comes there?" Their commander was equally non-committal, and demanded, "Who comes there?"