Pittsburg Landing

“ That the prominent idea of withdrawing General Wallace's Division from Crump's Landing, to support the main army in its advance, is to be kept in mind;—whereby, confusion ceases as to the hour of the day when the order to report at Pittsburg Landing was delivered or became operative;—thereby, also, reconciling memories with the incidents of the day, with no discredit to any. ”

“ We informed the idlers that there would soon be a mighty uprising of Kentuckians in favor of the Southern cause, but professed ignorance of the movements of Mitchel's army. In return we received the first vague reports of the battle of Pittsburg Landing. It was the impression that the Union army was totally destroyed, thousands of men being slain, and innumerable cannon captured. One countryman assured me that five hundred Yankee gunboats had been sunk! I ventured to suggest a doubt as to the Yankees having so many, but was not able to shake his faith. ”

“ Pitcairn, Major, at Lexington, i. 14. Pitchforks used by haymakers in their attack on the Margaretta, i. 21. Pittsburg, armor-plated Federal gun-boat, built by Eads, iv. 245; Captain Egbert Thompson commands, 290; before Vicksburg, 363, 370. Pittsburg Landing, fight at, iv. 284. Plantagenet, British liner, assists in the attack on the General Armstrong, iii. 188, 194, 196–198. Planter, Confederate transport, turned over to the Federals by Robert Small, a negro slave, iv. 501, 502. Plattsburg Bay, operations of Macdonough in, iii. 145, 150. “Playing ball with the red coats,” ii. ”

“ It was nearly noon of the second day when the City of Pittsburg reached the Cincinnati landing. The levee presented an imposing sight. At least twenty-five boats, sternand side-wheelers, were loading and discharging freight, and the bank was crowded with people, vehicles, and goods. Swarms of hotel-runners and omnibuses and carriages were waiting for passengers. Of course, the dirt-begrimed individuals emerging from the deck did not attract the runners. ”

“ On the 5th of April Buell left Nashville and arrived at Savannah the same day. The division of his army under Nelson was on the battle field on the sixth, at five P. M.
The Confederates had for some time intended to attack Grant before Buell could join him, and on hearing of his near approach they hastened the action, without waiting for their own reinforcements. This bold movement was made just one day too late.
POSITION OF THE FEDERAL TROOPS. Pittsburg Landing is simply a narrow ravine, down which a road passes to the river bank, between high bluffs on either side. There is no town whatever. ”

“ After going through another dreamy place—a long aqueduct across the Alleghany River, which was stranger than the bridge at Harrisburg, being a vast, low, wooden chamber full of water—we emerged upon that ugly confusion of backs of buildings and crazy galleries and stairs, which always abuts on water, whether it be river, sea, canal, or ditch: and were at Pittsburg.
Pittsburg is like Birmingham in England; at least its townspeople say so. Setting aside the streets, the shops, the houses, waggons, factories, public buildings, and population, perhaps it may be. ”

“ Because Pittsburg stood at the head of the Ohio it was a door to the whole Mississippi valley, and men and goods quickly found their way to it. Once there a boat would take them over thousands of miles of river, or to New Orleans and the open sea.
Henry Clay used to tell in Congress a good story about Pittsburg. He said that a ship built at Pittsburg sailed down the river, through the gulf, across the Atlantic, into the Mediterranean, and anchored at Leghorn. ”

“ PITTSBURG'S BEST MAN. Before the war there were a great many coal boatmen traveling on the river. I was coming up at that time with Captain Forsyth, on the steamer Cambria. Some of the coal boat crew traveled in the cabin, and others on deck. I got into a game with one of their bullies. They said he was the best man in Pittsburg. In the play I bested him out of a few hundred dollars, and he did not like it a bit. He went down on deck and told his party there was a BOY up stairs who had won all his money. ”

“ Fleets of flat, shallow coal barges are moored along, waiting to be made up into tows for their journey down the Ohio, as Pittsburg has an extensive river trade, covering over twenty thousand miles of Western waters. Out of the weird and animated scene there come all sorts of busy noises, forges and trip-hammers pounding, steam hissing, railroad trains running, whistles screeching, locomotives puffing, bells ringing, so that with the flame jets rising, and the smokes of all colors blowing about, there is got a good idea of the active industries of this very busy place. ”

“ There was not much promise of pleasure in the sodden afternoon of a mid-March day at Pittsburg, where the smoke of a thousand foundry chimneys gave up trying to rise through the thick, soft air, and fell with the constant rain which it dyed its own black. But early memories stirred joyfully in the two travellers in whose consciousness I was making my tour, at sight of the familiar stern-wheel steamboat lying beside the wharf boat at the foot of the dilapidated levee, and doing its best to represent the hundreds of steamboats that used to lie there in the old days. ”

“ The morning had come, and we were now approaching Pittsburg. It was just about sunrise when we came in view of its spires and buildings. The passengers were scrambling up, now, in every direction.
Some of the passengers were now at the end of their journey. Others had to go further; and some of us many hundred miles further. However, we were all alike glad to get on shore.
But our trunks—where were they? They had, for the greater part, been piled together in a certain place on the deck of the boat, under the care of the steward: they were safe, only it was difficult, at first, to find them. ”

“ Pittsburg is proud of the fact that she handles more tons of freight in a year than any other city in the world. Indeed, the tonnage is greater than that of New York and Chicago taken together.
The old “point” between the rivers is filled with tall buildings. Inclined railways run up the steep bluffs on the further side of each river and lead to the beautiful streets and the homes where many of the people live. For Pittsburg is not all coal and furnaces and smoke, but has fine churches, the great Carnegie Library and Museum, and many schools. ”

“ These unpromising boats, as well as the ladder floats, are, during favorable weather, often run to Pittsburg with entire safety. Steamboats, however, run up to the mouth of Oil Creek during the time of high water, and afford the safest and most expeditious means of transportation.
As to the abundance of the supply in this region, there can be but little doubt. Wells seem at times to become exhausted, but it is from local causes. At times a cavity may be tapped that has been supplied from a very small avenue, and may be readily exhausted, but exhausted only to be refilled again. ”

“ The inhabitants send up the Alleghany, Monongahela, and their forks, whisky, cyder, bacon, apples, iron, and castings, glass and foreign merchandize; in return they receive many thousand bushels of salt from Onondago, and immense rafts from Alleghany and French creeks. The quantity of rafts imported into Pittsburg annually, is computed at 4,000,000 feet; average nine dollars per 1000 feet." Palmer's Journal of travels in the United States and Canada, 1817. ”

“ Daffodil was cheery and helpful. Grandmere was not as well as usual. She said she was growing old. There was a great deal of outside business for the men. Pittsburg was a borough town, and its citizens were considering various industries. Every day almost, new things came to the fore, and now they were trying some experiments in making glass. The country round was rich in minerals. Boat-building required larger accommodations. ”

“ It is 444 miles west of New York, 354 miles west by north of Philadelphia, and 468 miles east of Chicago. These distances are by rail. The mean average temperature is 53° F., the mean for January being 31° and for July, 75°. The altitude at the river level is 703 feet.
Although eleventh in population, according to the census returns. Pittsburg ranks fifth in commercial and industrial importance among the cities of the United States. ”

“ Washington, however, though only an addy-kong of General Forbes, decided to take command. His mother had said to him over and over, "George, in an emergency always take command." He done so, as General Rusk would say. As he approached, the French set fire to the fort, and retreated, together with the Indians and Molly Maguires.
Pittsburg now stands on this historic ground, and is one of the most delightful cities of America. ”

“ While roads wide enough for vehicles had been cut from town to town near the coast as far south as Virginia, and a few had been opened into the interior along the routes of armies during the war, the most comfortable way of travelling was by water, and ships were the only means for transporting freight, save only as some goods were carried on mules and wagons into the interior—on one route as far as Pittsburg. ”

“ He insisted that the French had been really driven out. They certainly had been checked in their advance to the Mississippi.
Pittsburg was a conglomerate in these early days. Welsh, Irish, and English had contributed to its then small population of the few hundreds whose history and beginning were like so many other emigrants. The houses were ranged largely about the Fort for protection from the Indians. There were small crooked lanes, a few dignified by-streets, Penn Street, 12 Duquesne way, Water and Ferry streets. ”

“ The raft came out below, and went on; and then we were left on foot again, among the Indians called Corn Planters. Fortunately for us, we had taken a Yankee passenger aboard our raft, who had some money with him, with which we bought a canoe from an Indian in which we came down the river until we reached Pittsburg. Before we reached Pittsburg we met a recruiting party at the mouth of French creek; the officer was very kind—he furnished us with a room to sleep in—gave us flour and whiskey. His object was to enlist some of us ”

“ We broke down innumerable times in the dismal recesses of the forests, were sheltered and fed by the kind Samaritans who inhabited the wilderness, where snow and ice-clothed field and dell, and where Winter seemed too firmly established ever again to yield to Spring's soft influences.
The day was dark and dreary upon our arrival at Pittsburg. Smoke hung like a pall over town and country, and but for the sociability and hospitality that reigns within doors, Pittsburg would be the gloomiest of places. ”

“ Pittsburg is at present essentially pacific; if cannon and balls are seen here, it is because a trading people make it a rule to supply the market with whatever is wanted. The cannon are new, fresh from the mould, and equally at the disposition of the Sultan Mahmoud, or the Emperor of Morocco, or the government of the States, whichever will pay for them. Pittsburg is a manufacturing town, which will one day become the Birmingham of America ”

“ Oh, it is being civilized like all new places. We have had to work and struggle to plant towns and bring them into shape. Pittsburg has a most admirable position for traffic and abounds in iron ore as well as other minerals. ”

“ Goods from Philadelphia and Baltimore were hauled in great Conestoga wagons drawn by four and six horses across the mountains to Pittsburg. The carrying trade alone in these ways was immense. More than 12,000 wagons came to Pittsburg in a year, bringing goods on which the freight was $1,500,000.
[Illustration: Boats on the Mohawk [1] ]
[Footnote 1: From an old print.] ”

“ I reached Pittsburg at nine o'clock in the morning, after having crossed the Monongahela in a ferry-boat, for which I paid three cents. Having concluded my business at the bank, I took a walk round the town: it is a large place with upwards 7000 inhabitants. It is well situated for trade on the Ohio, at the junction of the Monongahela and Allegany rivers. A large bridge is nearly finished over the Monongahela, and another partly built over the Allegany ”

“ The answer admits that the State of Pennsylvania has expended large sums of money in the construction of public improvements, terminating at Pittsburg and Beaver; that a great amount of freight and a large number of passengers do pass over said works, and that a large amount of toll to the State is derived therefrom; that the navigation of the Ohio River is important to the works above referred to, and that the value thereof would be affected injuriously if from any cause the passage of steamboats from the city of Pittsburg downwards were obstructed or impeded. ”

“ It now becomes necessary to consider in what direction the Road can be carried thence to Pittsburg. From an inspection of a map of the State it will be seen that a straight line, drawn from this gap to Pittsburg, will fall on Munster, Beulah, and follow the valley of Black Lick for nearly its whole extent, and intersect the Conemaugh near Blairsville; thence it crosses the country lying within the elbow formed by the Kiskeminetas and Allegheny rivers, passing the Loyalhanna and Crabtree waters, and following, generally, the high and broken ridge parting the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers. ”