Jacob D. Cox

“ The habit of disregarding rights of property grows apace. The legitimate exercise of the rules of war is not easily distinguished from their abuse. The crops are trampled down, the fences disappear, the timber is felled for breastworks and for camp-fires, the green forage is used for the army horses and mules, barns and houses may be dismantled to build or to floor a bridge,--all this is necessary and lawful. But the pigs and the poultry also disappear, though the subsistence officers are issuing full and abundant rations to the troops ”

“ The grassy banks rise about a hundred feet above the water, and then the hills roll and rise around us in charming variety. Near the water's edge a great spring pours out from the bank in a swift steady stream two yards wide and six inches deep, giving sweet and pure water enough for a whole army, and the zigzag paths to it are filled with picturesque groups of soldiers loaded with camp kettles or canteens. ”

“ It was interesting to observe the rapid progress in all the essentials of good discipline made in commands which were permanent enough to give time for development of order and system. We were fortunate in Sherman's army in having in himself and in the three commanders next in rank examples of courteous treatment of subordinates coupled with steady insistence upon the prompt and right performance of duty. Under such a régime intelligent men grow sensitive to the slightest indication of dissatisfaction, and a superior officer has to weigh his words lest he give more pain than he intended. ”

“ Lincoln and Mr. Stanton had become satisfied that a radical change must be made in the organization of the Western armies. The plan of sending separate armies to co-operate, as Rosecrans's and Burnside's had been expected to do, was in itself vicious. It is, after a fashion, an attempt of two to ride a horse without one of them riding behind. Each will form a plan for his own army, as indeed he ought to do, and when one of them thinks the time has come for help from the other, that other may be out of reach or committed to operations which cannot readily be dropped. ”

“ The elegant orator and polished man of the world felt no magnetism but that of repulsion; and his senses were so dulled by it that he never guessed the wisdom and the breadth, the subtle policy and the deep statesmanship, the luminous insight and the unfaltering purpose which now seem writ so plain in Lincoln's words and deeds.
General Schenck did not appear to differ greatly from Davis, but what he said was in short, trenchant sentences, interjected from time to time. ”

“ The remainder of the season bore witness that we could organize our camp life so as to secure cleanliness of person and healthful living without transgressing the reasonable rules as to weight and bulk of baggage which Sherman insisted on. Every day proved the reasonableness of his system, without which the campaign could not have been made.
The tendency of war to make men relapse into barbarism becomes most evident when an army is living in any degree upon the enemy's country. Desolation follows in its track, and the utmost that discipline can do is to mitigate the evil. ”

“ Here we know to an absolute certainty that the army is stuck in the mud; but the administration would not believe General Thomas when he told them so, and force him to pretend to move, with the fear of being superseded hanging over him, whilst he knows that any effective movement is impossible. We can ruin our horses and mules, and put half our men in hospitals without getting twenty-five miles from the Tennessee unless the weather changes, and this is all we can do. Hood can laugh at us unless the Mobile and Ohio Railroad can be repaired as we go and be made to furnish us supplies. ”

“ Yet a society based upon slavery had such community of interest with the States further south that it was soon dragged into the secession vortex. When once war had begun, the growth of hostility against what was regarded as their public enemy was rapid, and in every State a war party in time of war has a great advantage over the opposition. The charge of "giving aid and comfort to the enemy" is too powerful a weapon against the minority, and the outward appearance was soon that of almost complete unanimity in the desperate struggle to make secession a success. ”

“ The dread of our armies had been increased by the exaggerations which the Confederate authorities had used to excite the people to desperate resistance, and the terror now reacted in a general popular demand for surrender. The story of the burning of Columbia had been given to them as a wanton and deliberate barbarity on Sherman's part, and the delegation which met him could hardly believe their own senses when they heard his earnest expressions of desire to end the war at once and save the people from suffering and the country from devastation. ”

“ In the consultations at Knoxville Foster had plainly stated his own conviction that the only wise course was to abandon the thought of aggressive warfare until spring; to station the troops so as to cover Knoxville, but to select their positions chiefly with reference to collecting forage and breadstuffs; to send all unnecessary animals to the rear and in every way to simplify to the utmost the problem of carrying the army through the winter, preserving it for active use when the change of season and the improvement of the railway line should make regular supplies possible. ”

“ I have seen too much of the Southern people, in arms in the field and in their homes, to believe for one moment that they would knowingly approve the treatment our prisoners received. But their own reputation before the world makes it their duty to fix the responsibility for a great crime upon those whose commands or whose criminal negligence caused horrors which are among the most odious things in the world's history. ”

“ From the moment the music struck up on the parade ground, and the detachments for the guard from the different companies began to file out and march into place, there was always a large concourse of the men in gray making a most interested body of spectators. The smart appearance of the men, the rapid inspection of arms, of haversacks and knapsacks, the march in review, the assignment to posts, the final marching off the field, all seemed to give them great enjoyment. ”

“ Burnside's well-conducted retreat, on the other hand, had lured Longstreet forward, and the patient endurance of a siege had kept the enemy in front of Knoxville, and even led to the further depletion of Bragg by the detachment of Buckner, giving to Grant the very opportunity he desired. The good fortune of the National commander culminated at Missionary Ridge. Soldiers believe in good luck quite as much as in genius, and follow a leader whose star is in the ascendant with a confidence which is the guaranty of victory. Great opportunities, however, come to all. ”

“ It seemed at one time that not even the manifest mischief of deranging the organization of the army, as deliberately settled by both Grant and Sherman, would overcome the political hostility arrayed against him. This was without any reasonable foundation. Although Schofield was not given to political discussion, my closeness to him enabled me to know that he was an earnestly loyal man whose heart was warmly engaged in the National cause. He believed in emancipation as a right and politic war measure, and in fighting the rebellion vigorously till it should be conquered. ”

“ I have always found it most comfortable and most healthful to live under canvas, even in winter, in the sparsely settled parts of the country. It might be different in Europe or in the more densely peopled States at the East, but in the West and South a house cannot always be found in proper proximity to the line, and changing from house to tent and back again is much more dangerous to health than adherence to what seems the more exposed kind of life. There is also a question of discipline and morale involved, and the effect of example at headquarters is felt through the whole command. ”

“ The orders issued from our army headquarters in Georgia forbade soldiers from entering houses or stripping families of the necessaries of life. Most of the officers honestly tried to enforce this rule; but in an army of a hundred thousand men, a small fraction of the whole would be enough to spoil the best efforts of the rest. The people found, too, that it was not only the enemy they had to fear. The worse disciplined of their own troops and the horde of stragglers were often as severe a scourge as the enemy. ”

“ The men would rouse themselves, the column would march, perhaps less than a hundred yards, when the road would be blocked again, the men would again seek the fence corners and stir up the fires that had been left by those who were now in advance. Thus in cold and wet and weariness the night wore on, till when day broke about six o'clock next morning we had put a distance of less than two miles between us and the village, and Willich's division had barely reached the first wooded ridge beyond the town. ”

“ He described the effort of Rosecrans and the staff to rally the fugitives and to bring a battery into action, under a shower of flying bullets and crashing shells. It failed, for men were as deaf to reason in their mad panic as would be a drove of stampeded cattle. What was needed was a fresh and well-organized division to cover the rout, to hold back the enemy, and to give time for rallying the fugitives. But no such division was at hand, and the rush to the rear could not be stayed. ”

“ He does not impress one as brilliant in genius, but as eminently sound and sensible. His quality of greatness was that he handled great affairs as he would little ones, without betraying any consciousness that this was a great thing to do. He reminds one of Wellington in the combination of lucid and practical common-sense with aggressive bull-dog courage. Some telling lines, developing his traits as he appeared to a critical observer, are found in a dispatch of General David Hunter to the Secretary of War, giving a report of his visit to Chattanooga where he was sent to inspect the army. ”

“ Davis and General Johnston cannot be overlooked if we would judge intelligently the events of the Atlanta campaign. It may be that the general was right in thinking a winter advance impracticable, though Lee's concurrence in the President's plan is no small argument in its favor. It is, nevertheless, the indisputable province of a government to determine, in view of the whole situation, political and military, whether continued operations are necessary. The army is organized for the sole purpose of reaching the ends at which its government aims in the war. ”

“ Of one thing there is no shadow of doubt. We of the National Army in Georgia regarded the removal of Johnston as equivalent to a victory for us. Three months of sharp work had convinced us that a change from Johnston's methods to those which Hood was likely to employ, was, in homely phrase, to have our enemy grasp the hot end of the poker. We knew that we should be kept on the alert and must be watchful; but we were confident that a system of aggression and a succession of attacks would soon destroy the Confederate army. Of course Hood did not mean to assault solidly built intrenchments ”