Selden Connor

“ Let me show you a landscape that shall not fade out from 'the lidless eye of time' long after we are all dead. A half mile [p. 312] from the eastern border of Chattanooga is a long swell of land, sparsely sprinkled with houses, flecked thickly with tents, and checkered with two or three graveyards. On its summit stand the red earthworks of Fort Wood, with its great guns frowning from the angles. Mounting the parapet and facing eastward you have a singular panorama. Away to your left is a shining elbow of the Tennessee, a lowland of woods, a long-drawn valley, glimpses of houses. ”

“ We have seen, in the experience of the last two years, how futile are all our efforts to maintain the Union by force of arms; but, even had war been carried on by us successfully, the ruinous result would exhibit its utter impracticability for the attainment of the desired end. With or without arms, with or without leaders, we will at least, in the effort to defend our rights as a free people, build up a great mausoleum of hearts, to which men who yearn for liberty will in after years, with bowed heads and reverently, resort, as Christian pilgrims to the sacred shrines of the Holy Land. ”

“ The mass of Confederates, which a rising ground just to the right of the tent has hitherto concealed from view, rush upon the hapless regiment, and from the distance of a hundred yards pour into it an annihilating fire even while the men are still upon their faces. Overwhelmed and confounded, they leap to their feet and vainly endeavor to change front to meet the enemy. It is impossible to do it beneath that withering, murderous fire; and for the first time in its history the Tenth Regiment turns its back upon the enemy. ”

“ They know precisely what to do first, and they do it. I have seen them march into a strange region at dark, and almost as soon as the fires would show well they were twinkling all over the field, the Sibley cones rising like the work of enchantment everywhere, and the little dog-tents lying snug to the ground, as if, like the mushrooms, they had grown there, and the aroma of coffee and tortured bacon suggesting creature comforts, and the whole economy of life in canvas cities moving as steadily on as if it had never been intermitted. The movements of regiments are as blind as fate. ”

“ President, there is not one disinterested, determined, intelligent champion of the Union cause who does not feel that all attempts to put down the rebellion, and at the same time uphold its exciting cause, are preposterous and futile; that the rebellion, if crushed out to-morrow, would be renewed within a year if slavery were left in full vigor; that army officers who remain to this day devoted to slavery can at best be but half-way loyal to the Union; and that every hour of deference to slavery is an hour of added and deepened peril to the Union. ”

“ You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war. ”

“ In the full flush of life and health, vigorously leading on the troops in hand, and energetically summoning up the rest of his command, watching and even leading the attack of a comparatively small body, a glorious picture of the best type of military leader, superbly mounted, and horse and man sharing in the excitement of the shock of battle, Reynolds was, of course, a shining mark to the enemy's sharp-shooters. He had taken his troops into a heavy growth of timber on the slope of a hill-side, and, under their regimental and brigade commanders, the men did their work well and promptly. ”

“ The news stimulated the men anew, and they started down the mountain with their eyes riveted on the gap, for fear, as Drake says, it would take wings and flee. Alas! alas! The unexpected happens in war if nowhere else.
The gap didn't exactly take wings and flee, but the ubiquitous General Breckenridge, with an army at his back, fell like a thunderbolt upon the Union garrison at the pass, defeated and routed the entire force and hurled them backward at mounted double-quick pace toward Knoxville; and, presto! the gap was closed in the very faces of the yearning-eyed, broken-bodied pilgrims. ”

“ The battle ended late in the afternoon, and by nightfall, the successful army was in bivouac, while the beaten army was in flight for Washington, unpursued. The rain began to fall in floods as the night came on, adding to the misery of the wounded of both armies, who were treated with every possible kindness. To a novice in warfare, the battlefield was a fearful scene, as the bright morning of the next day dawned upon it, with the dead scattered over it, lying beside dead horses, broken artillery, muskets, wagons, and shattered trees. ”

“ The powder from their musketry burned in our very faces, and the breath of their artillery was hot upon our cheeks. The 'leaden rain and iron hail' in an instant forced back the advancing lines upon those who were close to them in the rear; and before the men could be rallied to renew the charge, the lines had been hurled back by the irresistible fire of the enemy to the cover of the ravine or gully which they had just passed. The enemy swept the ground with his guns, killing and wounding many—our men in the meantime keeping up a spirited fire upon the unseen foe. ”

“ The United States does and must assert its authority wherever it once had power; for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling. This feeling assumes various shapes, but always comes back to that of Union. Once admit the Union, once more acknowledge the authority of the National Government, and, instead of devoting your houses and streets and roads to the dread uses of war, I and this army become at once your protectors and supporters, shielding you from danger, let it come from what quarter it may. ”

“ All through the night, crowds of men, women, and children traversed the streets, loading themselves with supplies and plunder. At midnight, soldiers drunk with vile liquor, followed by a reckless crowd as drunk as themselves, dashed in the plate-glass windows of the stores, and made a wreck of everything.
About nine o'clock on Monday morning, terrific shell explosions, rapid and continuous, added to the terror of the scene, and gave the impression that the city was being shelled by the retreating Confederate army from the south side. ”

“ Every city had its fair for the relief of the widows and orphans, every hamlet its two or three crippled soldiers hobbling about in their faded blue overcoats, almost every house its incurable sorrow. They had seen the wheel turning in the provost-marshal's office, in places where volunteering was not sufficiently rapid, and knew that their own names might be the next to be drawn for service at the front. They knew how many graves there were at Gettysburg, how many at Shiloh, how many at Stone River ”

“ Not least among the fascinations of the soldier's life is the uncertain tenure he has of his camp. He has no local habitation. He may flatter himself that the army is going to remain long enough to make it worth his while to provide the comforts and conveniences within the compass of his resources and ingenuity, and when he has fairly established himself and contemplates his work with complacency, the ruthless order comes to "break camp," and down goes his beautiful home as if it were but a child's house of blocks. ”

“ No impatience, no irritation, no anxiety, except for the fort to open; and, after it did open, full five minutes elapsed before we answered. In the mean time the guns were trained as if at a target, and all the sounds I could hear were, 'Steady, boys, steady! Left tackle a little—so! so!' Then the roar of a broadside, and an eager cheer as the enemy were driven from their water battery. Don't imagine they were frightened; no man could stand under that iron shower; and the brave fellows returned to their guns as soon as it lulled, only to be driven away again. ”

“ There is not the slightest necessity for lauding American bravery or impressing it upon American youth. But there is the gravest necessity for teaching them respect for law, and reverence for human life, and regard for the rights of their fellow-men, and all that is significant in the history of our country—lest their feet run to evil and they make haste to shed innocent blood. ”

“ If facts prove to be what they are now represented, this engagement of Sunday morning will be recorded as the most desperate of this war. Broken limbs, broken heads, the mangling of bodies, all prove that it was a contest between enraged men—on the one side, from hatred to a race; and on the other, desire for self-preservation, revenge for past grievances and the inhuman murder of their comrades. One brave man took his former master prisoner, and brought him into camp with great gusto. A rebel prisoner made a particular request that his own negroes should not be placed over him as a guard. ”

“ The part of President Lincoln's proclamation that created most excitement at the South was not that which declared the freedom of the blacks—for the secessionists professed to be amused at this as a papal bull against a comet—but that which announced that negroes would thenceforth be received into the military service of the United States. Whatever might be said of the powerlessness of the Government to liberate slaves that were within the Confederate lines, it was plain enough that a determination to enlist colored troops brought in a large resource hitherto untouched. ”

“ If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a loving God always ascribe to him? ”

“ One day when the Twentieth Ohio was in advance, we came, at a turn in the road, upon two old colored people, man and woman, plump and sleek, riding mules, and coming toward us. As they caught sight of the long column of blue-coats, the woman, crossing her hands upon her bosom, rolled up her eyes and cried in ecstasy 'Bress de Lord! Bress Almighty God! Our friends is come, our friends is come!' On the return, we crossed a plantation where the field-hands were ploughing. The soldiers like mules, and the negroes gladly unharnessed them, and helped the soldiers to mount. ”

“ Imagine a broad plantation stretching its sunny acres from river to forest, a vast and lonely area with no signs of human occupancy anywhere, except, perhaps, the toil-bent figures of a few bondservants of the soil at their tasks in the fields, under the eye of the overseer, lending by the unjoyous monotony of their labor an air of gloom and melancholy to the oppressive loneliness of the scene. ”

“ I remember no scenes in camp more picturesque than some of our visits have presented. The great open army wagon stands under some shade-tree, with the officer who has volunteered to help, or the regular field agent, standing in the midst of boxes, bales, and bundles. Wheels, sides, and every projecting point are crowded with eager soldiers, to see what the 'Sanitary' has brought for them. By the side of the great wagon stands the light wagon of the lady, with its curtains all rolled up, while she arranges before and around her the supplies she is to distribute. ”

“ I would show them that a political lie is as despicable as a personal lie, whether uttered in an editorial, or a platform, or a President's message, or a colored cartoon, or a disingenuous ballot; and that political chicanery, when long persisted in, is liable to settle its shameful account in a stoppage of civilization and a spilling of life. These are simple lessons, yet they are not taught in a day, and some whom we call educated go through life without mastering them at all. ”

“ In Memphis, Vicksburg, and Mississippi, we fed thousands upon thousands of the families of rebel soldiers left on our hands, and whom we could not see starve. Now that war comes home to you, you feel very different. You deprecate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent carloads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds and thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes and under the government of their inheritance. ”