Army of the Tennessee

“ Joseph E. Johnston in North Carolina, a large proportion of Tennesseeans answered to roll call, participated in the unequal battle at Bentonville, and surrendered at Greensboro.
Nor would we forget to mention in this connection the brave sons of Tennessee who fought in the Army of Virginia, who fought at Manassas under Stonewall Jackson, at Chancellorsville, at Gettysburg, and on other fields, and who, when overwhelmed in numbers, surrendered with Lee at Appomattox. The glory they so nobly won is a part of the immortal heritage of Tennesseeans. ”

“ It is not within my province to speak at length of the soldiers—old and young, rich and poor—that crowded into the ranks of the Confederate armies. Tennessee furnished one hundred and eighteen regiments—about one hundred thousand soldiers, nearly one-sixth of the entire Confederate force. Many counties had more soldiers in the army than their voting population. For four years upon hundreds of battle fields they helped maintain the unequal contest. With resources exhausted and their armies depleted to skeletons, they lost all save honor. ”

“ He was young, active, and brave as a soldier, and was in every engagement of his company during the war. Perhaps he was absent for a short time, but only when suffering from wounds received in battle. He has the distinction to have been in command of those soldiers who fired the last guns before the surrender of the Army of Tennessee at Greensboro, N. C., April 26, 1865, which occurred but a few days afterwards. He is as worthy and honorable as a citizen as he was brave and true as a soldier. ”

“ He is most efficient in the position he occupies. He joined the Confederate army when but a boy. After engaging in the battle of Chickamauga, his regiment (the Sixty-Second Tennessee Infantry) was sent with Gen. Bushrod Johnson’s brigade to the Army of Northern Virginia. He was severely wounded at the battle of Drewry’s Bluff, on the James River, below Richmond; and after convalescing from his wound he reported to his command at Petersburg, and surrendered with General Lee at Appomattox on the 9th of April, 1865. ”

“ In the War between the States the official rolls of the Northern army show a total enlistment of 2,850,000 men. Allowing 700,000 men for the South—which would be the extreme limit for a white population of 6,000,000, of which 3,000,000 were women and more than 2,000,000 males under age, not to mention the 200,000 Southern men who went into the Union army and the men past military age and disabled—it would have been impossible for the South to have had more than 700,000 on its rolls, and these fought four to one. ”

“ The fall of Corinth at once changed the theatre of war. The Federal army was divided, the Army of the Tennessee, under Grant, remaining in Mississippi and Western Tennessee, and the Army of the Ohio, under Buell, being ordered to march east and capture Chattanooga. ”

“ When the great soldier and leader, Joseph E. Johnston, surrendered the remnant of the Army of Tennessee, on April 26, 1865, there were left of the gallant old Thirteenth less than fifty officers and men. More than twelve hundred men had once mustered in its ranks. Throughout the four years they had fallen in battle, been stricken in camp, died on the march, and sometimes, alas! ”

“ More than thirteen years have passed away since, in the Old North State, by order of superior officers, you laid aside the equipments of war and furled forever the flag you have loved and followed—often in victory, sometimes in disaster, but always in honor and with a soldier’s devotion to duty. It is meet and proper, fellow soldiers, that our reunion should be inaugurated at Woodbury. For here, under these towering hills and along the meanderings of the beautiful little river that laves your green and fertile valleys, were enacted many of the stirring scenes through which the Regiment passed. ”

“ At General Forrest’s suggestion, they remained with him, participated in his engagements around Selma, Ala., and surrendered with General Forrest’s command, receiving their paroles at Gainesville, Ala., in May, 1865, as members of Company G, Fourth Tennessee Regiment. The sixteen young men are certainly entitled to be named in the list of living in Company G at this time, for they gave the best evidence of their manhood and patriotism by leaving voluntarily their homes behind the lines under the forlorn and desperate circumstances surrounding them and the Confederate army. ”

“ After the intense excitement created by the bridge-burning had somewhat subsided, the Confederate and State authorities again manifested a desire to win over, or at least conciliate, the Union element. The commander at Knoxville issued a proclamation to the “Disaffected People of East Tennessee,” and assured “all those interested who have fled to the enemy’s lines, and who are actually in their army, that he will welcome their return to their homes and their friends; they are offered amnesty and protection, if they come to lay down their arms, and act as loyal citizens.” ”

“ It was utterly impossible to keep up a line of supply for an army in East Tennessee by the wagon roads over the mountains. The railroad through Chattanooga was indispensable for this purpose. But Mr. Lincoln had not fully appreciated this, and was discontented that both Buell and Rosecrans had in turn paid little attention, as it seemed, to his desire to make the liberation of East Tennessee the primary and immediate aim of their campaigns. ”

“ The troops were in fine spirits, and the whole Army of West Tennessee seemed eager to emulate the armies of the Potomac and Kentucky. No army ever marched to battle with prouder steps, more hopeful countenances, or with more courage, than marched the Army of West Tennessee out of Ripley on the morning of September 29th, on its way to Corinth. ”

“ And the best reason I can give that the remnant of the grand Army of Tennessee so successfully crossed the Tennessee river is that Gen. Thomas always rode his horse at a walk. This is no reflection on the defense of our rear guard.
I remained in Columbus, Ga., and on the 12th of January, 305 1865, married Miss Mary F. Abercrombie, daughter of Gen. Anderson Abercrombie, a planter in Russell County, Ala. [37]
Sherman had now captured Savannah, and was marching to join Grant. Then came the surrender of Gen. Lee. And now Gen. J. H. Wilson was nearing Columbus. ”

“ The first and greatest object of a general is to crush and destroy all armed opposition to constituted authority. Why, then, was it that Sherman did not turn and follow Hood into Middle Tennessee when he and Thomas, who had a large army at Nashville, could have crushed the little army of General Hood, as it were, between the upper and nether millstones and thus end the war—anyhow in the Middle West? ”

“ SOLDIERS OF THE FIRST TENNESSEE REGIMENT:—I should have said captains, for every man among you is fit to be a captain. I have heard of your acts of bravery on every battlefield during the whole war, and 'captains,' so far as my wishes are concerned, I today make every man of you a captain, and I say honestly today, were I a private soldier, I would have no higher ambition on earth than to belong to the First Tennessee Regiment. You have been loyal and brave; your ranks have never yet, in the whole history of the war, been broken, even though the army was routed ”

“ If the Army of Tennessee was found to be unable to hold positions of great strength like those at Dalton, Resaca, Etowah, Kenesaw, and on the Chattahoochee, I could not reasonably hope that it would be more successful in the plains below Atlanta, where it would find neither natural nor artificial advantages of position. ”

“ Some were killed and wounded, and a few prisoners were taken. We lost a few men ourselves. At this juncture of affairs a line of our infantry appeared in our rear; and before the enemy could recover from their surprise we had a sufficient force to hold the position till General Johnston’s army passed over the bridge that night. Undoubtedly this charge of the Eighth Texas and the Fourth Tennessee saved the bridge and made certain the escape of Johnston’s little army at Bentonville, for at that time the enemy numbered six to our one. ”

“ Don Carlos Buell, commander of the Department of the Ohio, reinforced his line so that Johnston had to keep his main force at Bowling Green, Ky., to guard the important railroads which penetrated Middle and West Tennessee.
Commodore Foote’s gunboats ascending the Tennessee to attack Fort Henry.
Various plans for an attack upon the Confederate line were considered by the Federals. General Halleck, commander of the Department of the Missouri, believed that it would take an army of not less than 60,000 men, under one commander, to break the well-established line. ”

“ Our own loss in men, from all causes, was eleven hundred, which loss was replaced to a great extent by new recruits and absentees we brought out with us.
CHAPTER IV.
In East Tennessee. We remained a short time in the vicinity of Bainbridge, Ala., getting horses shod, etc. Many soldiers who had been cut off while in Tennessee crossed the river at different points and rejoined their command. In rejoining the Army of Tennessee we again passed through the field of the battle of Chickamauga. ”

“ The force with which he crossed the Tennessee river was a little over twenty thousand men. It was composed of the troops which had held the lines in Kentucky—those which had been stationed at Bowlinggreen, all that was left of Crittenden's command, all that were left of the garrisons of Donelson and Henry. The garrisons of minor importance in Tennessee contributed, as the State was evacuated, to strengthen the army. He was very soon joined by the forces from Pensacola, about ten thousand strong, and a splendid body of men. ”

“ Its volume is large enough to supply a great city, and the stream that flows from it is that of a small river. After detailing a guard to hold the captives, the remainder of the command were marched back to their horses. The road was full of our ambulances, litters, etc., bearing off the dead and wounded. Here was presented that other phase of grim-visaged war, sickening to look upon: friends and comrades dead and dying who a few hours before were full of life and soldierly enthusiasm; men with their pale, ashy countenances turned toward the sky. ”

“ Paul Anderson was in command of the Fourth Tennessee, which was on the right of the brigade. We moved in column down the road leading to the river and, fording the stream near the mill, formed a line of battle in regular infantry style in the edge of low, level beech woods, and, placing our skirmishers a short distance in front, advanced through the woods. The enemy knew that we were coming and kept up an incessant shelling of the woods, some of our men being injured by limbs of trees torn off by the cannon balls. ”

“ From this time to the close of the war the history of the two regiments was one common history. The glory of the one was the pride of the other, and neither ever lost hope until the Confederate banner went down forever.
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From Shelbyville the army fell back across the Cumberland mountains, thus occupying the same position it did twelve months previous, and before it started into Kentucky. Tennesseeans for the second time saw their section abandoned, yet true to the Southern cause, cheerfully followed the fortunes of the Confederate flag. ”

“ The Mississippi, the Ohio, Cumberland, Barren, Tennessee and Yazoo Rivers penetrated or skirted the regions this army was required to defend, and rendered defense not only more difficult, but made the movements of the armies more hazardous.
No such disaster as at Fort Donelson or Vicksburg was possible save in the territory defended by the Army of Tennessee. ”

“ His cavalry were kept busy all winter in scouting and fighting back the enemy. Some of his encounters approached the dignity of a battle, in which he lost in killed and wounded a good many men and inflicted a like loss upon the enemy. The country surrounding Tunnel Hill and Dalton was thin, mountainous land and very poor in production and sparse in population. The subsistence of the army had to be brought there by railway. The soldiers always say that they went hungry longer there than at any other encampment during the war. ”

“ While the negotiations stated in the foregoing chapter were being had between Generals Johnston and Sherman Lieutenant General Hardee, who had been left at Smithfield in command of the Confederate army, commenced his move northward through Raleigh. The enemy, becoming active, moved also; but they did not come in sight until we were passing Durham Station, where we left the line of the railroad, marching in the direction of Chapel Hill. The enemy appeared in our rear and vigorously cannonaded the army as they passed, the cavalry bringing up the rear. ”

“ Billy Martin, hand over the stakes to Billy Webster. I'm beat, but hang me if I didn't outrun the whole Yankee army coming out of Kentucky; got away from Lieutenant Lansdown and the whole detail at Chattanooga with half a hog, a fifty pound sack of flour, a jug of Meneesee commissary whisky, and a camp-kettle full of brown sugar. I'm beat. Billy Martin, hand over the stakes. Bully for Bragg; he's hell on a retreat." Tennessee was trying bluff. He couldn't run worth a cent; but there was no braver or truer man ever drew a ramrod or tore a cartridge than Tennessee. ”