Part 11 (1/2)
When, on the evening of the 14th of July, at Port Hudson, Banks received this news, he went at once to Donaldsonville to confer with Grover and Weitzel on the situation and the plan of campaign. It was agreed on all hands that it was inexpedient to press Taylor hard or to hasten his movements in any way until time should have been allowed for the light-draught gunboats to re-enter Berwick Bay and thus gain control of Taylor's line of retreat. In thus refraining from any attempt to avenge promptly what must be regarded as a military affront, the depleted ranks and the wearied condition of the troops were perhaps taken into account, and, moreover, it must have been considered to the last degree inadvisable to entangle the command in the dense swamps that would have to be crossed, after pus.h.i.+ng Taylor prematurely back from the fertile and comparatively high lands that border the Bayou La Fourche. Then Banks continued on to New Orleans, where he arrived on the 18th, and renewed his pressure on the admiral for the gunboats; but, unfortunately, the gunboats were not to be had. Of those that had accompanied the army in the campaign of the Teche, only one, the feeble Hollyhock, had remained in Berwick Bay after the army descended the Red River, crossed the Atchafalaya, and moved on Port Hudson. The others, with the transports, had followed the movements of the troops and had been caught above the head of the Atchafalaya when the waters fell. Thus they had long been without repairs and not one of them was now in condition for immediate service. The water on the bar at the mouth of the Atchafalaya was now nearly at its lowest point, so that even of the light-draught gunboats only the lightest could cross. Accordingly it was not until the 22d of July that the Estrella and Clifton made their appearance in Berwick Bay and put an end to Taylor's operations.
On the afternoon of the 21st of July, knowing that the gunboats were coming, Taylor set the finis.h.i.+ng touch to his incursion by burning the rolling-stock of the railway and running the engines into the bay. He had already destroyed the bridges as far back as Tigerville, thus rendering the road quite useless to the Union forces for the next five weeks.
On the morning of the 25th the advance of Weitzel's brigade, under Lieutenant-Colonel Peck, consisting of his own 12th Connecticut and the 13th Connecticut, commanded by Captain Comstock, arrived at Brashear by steamer from Donaldsonville, and, landing, once more took possession of the place; but in the meantime Taylor had safely withdrawn to the west bank, and gone into camp on the Teche with all of his army intact and all his materials and supplies and most of his captures safe.
(1) The history of the 23d Connecticut says: ”We delivered to them 108 dead. We captured 40 prisoners.”-”Connecticut in the War,” p. 757.
(2) When Green says 800, he of course refers to the four regiments actually engaged in the a.s.sault; for, after losing, as he says, 261 of these 800, he makes the four regiments of Major's brigade, with two sections of Faries's battery, number 800; while his own force, with one section of Gonzales's battery, he puts at 750. 800 + 750 + 261 = 1,811.
CHAPTER XX. IN SUMMER QUARTERS.
Before Banks parted with Grover at Donaldsonville, he left orders for the troops to rest and go into ”summer quarters” as soon as the pending operation should be decided. Accordingly, in the last days of July, Weitzel broke away from the discomforts of muddy, dusty, shadeless Donaldsonville, and marching down the bayou, once more took up his quarters near Napoleonville and Thibodeaux, and encamped his men at ease among the groves and orchards of the garden of La Fourche.
On the 16th of July the steamboat Imperial, from St. Louis on the 8th, rounded to at the levee at New Orleans in token that the great river was once more free. The next day she set out on her return trip.
On the 5th of August a despatch from Halleck, dated the 23d of July, was received and published in orders: ”I congratulate you and your army on the crowning success of the campaign. It was reserved for your army to strike the last blow to open the Mississippi River. The country, and especially the great West, will ever remember with grat.i.tude their services.”
Afterwards, on the 28th of January, 1864, Congress pa.s.sed a joint resolution of thanks
”to Major-General Nathaniel P. Banks and the officers and soldiers under his command for the skill, courage, and endurance which compelled the surrender of Port Hudson, and thus removed the last obstruction to the free navigation of the Mississippi River.”
Admiral Porter now came down the river to New Orleans in his flags.h.i.+p Black Hawk, and arranged to relieve Admiral Farragut from the trying duty of patrolling and protecting the river, so long borne by the vessels of his fleet. Farragut then took leave of absence and went North, leaving the West Gulf Squadron to Commodore Bell.
When Port Hudson surrendered, two of the nine-months' regiments had already served beyond their time. The 4th Ma.s.sachusetts claimed its discharge on the 26th of June, the 50th four days later, insisting that their time ran from the muster-in of the last company; but, being without information from Was.h.i.+ngton on this point, Banks counted the time from the muster-in of the field and staff, and therefore wished to hold these regiments respectively eighty-one and forty-two days longer, or at all events until the receipt of instructions or the end of the siege. To this view officers and men alike objected, many of them so strongly that whole companies refused duty. They were within their lawful rights, yet, better counsels quickly prevailing, all consented to stay, and did good service to the last. Of seven other regiments the term of enlistment was on the point of expiring. They were the 21st, 22d, 24th, and 26th Maine, the 52d Ma.s.sachusetts, the 26th Connecticut, and the 16th New Hamps.h.i.+re. These nine regiments were now detached from the divisions to which they belonged and placed under the orders of Andrews to form part of the garrison of Port Hudson until the transports should be ready to take them home by sea or river.
As soon as the river was opened, Grant responded freely to all the urgent demands made upon him for steamboats, forage, beef, telegraph operators, and so on. He sent Ransom to occupy Natchez, and about the 25th of July Herron arrived at Port Hudson with his division of two brigades, 3,605 effectives, with 18 guns. Herron's command, the victor of Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove, formerly known as the Army of the Frontier, had been called to the aid of Grant at Vicksburg. It came to the Gulf as Herron's division, but was presently, by Grant's orders, merged in the 13th Corps as its Second Division.
At the close of July, in response to Banks's urgent appeals for more troops to replace the nine-months' men, Halleck ordered Grant to send down a corps of 10,000 or 12,000 men. Accordingly, between the 10th and 26th of August, Grant sent the reorganized Thirteenth Corps to Carrollton. Ord, the proper commander of the Thirteenth Corps, took sick leave, and the corps came to Louisiana under the command of Washburn, with Benton, Herron, Lee and Lawler commanding the divisions, and Colonel Mudd the brigade of cavalry. All told, the effective strength of the corps was 778 officers and 13,934 men; total, 14,712.
Chiefly in July and August the twenty-one nine-months' regiments and in November the nine-months' men of the 176th New York went home to be mustered out. This left of the Nineteenth Corps thirty-seven regiments, having an effective strength, daily diminis.h.i.+ng, of less than 350 men each; in all, less than 15,000. From these it was indispensable to take one full and strong regiment for Key West and the Tortugas, another for Pensacola, and a third for Forts Jackson and Saint Philip. This disposed of 2,000; 2,500 more was the least force that could be expected to do the police and guard duty of a hostile town so great and populous as New Orleans, containing the main depots of the army; thus the movable force of infantry was cut down to 8,500, or, as Banks states it, 10,000, and for any operations that should uncover New Orleans, would be but half that number.
In the reorganization of the Nineteenth Corps, thus rendered necessary, the Second division was broken up and ceased to exist, its First and Third brigades being transferred to the Third division, the temporary command of which was given to Dwight, but only for a short time. The First and Third brigades of the First division were thrown into one; Weitzel's brigade at first resumed its original name of the Reserve brigade, and a new Second brigade was provided by taking Gooding's from the Third division, so that when a fortnight later Weitzel's brigade was restored to the First division, it became the Third brigade. The Fourth division, like the Third, was reduced to two brigades. Major-General William B. Franklin, who had just come from the North under orders from Was.h.i.+ngton, was a.s.signed to command of the First division, while Emory was to retain the Third and Grover the Fourth; but when the Thirteenth Corps began to arrive, Banks found himself in the anomalous position of commanding a military department within whose limits two army corps were to serve, one, numerically the smaller, under his own immediate orders, the other under its proper commander. The approaching completion of the organization of the Corps d'Afrique would add a third element. It was therefore found convenient on every account to name an immediate commander of the Nineteenth Corps, and for this post Franklin's rank, service, and experience plainly indicated him. The a.s.signment was made on the 15th of August, and Franklin took command at Baton Rouge on the 20th. Then Weitzel was designated to command the First division. However, there were during the next few months, among the commanders of all grades, so many changes, due to illness or absence, that only confusion could follow the attempt to tell them all.
The artillery of the corps was redistributed to correspond with the new organization, and the cavalry was concentrated at Baton Rouge, Plaquemine, Thibodeaux, and New Orleans, with orders that all details for orderly duty and the like were to be furnished from a single battalion, the 14th New York, attached to the defences of New Orleans.
Weitzel's division, except his old brigade under Merritt, took post at Baton Rouge, where also Emory's division was encamped, successively commanded by Nickerson and McMillan, while Grover's division, a.s.signed to the defence of New Orleans, was separated, Birge occupying La Fourche, with headquarters at Thibodeaux, and Cahill forming the garrison of New Orleans.
At Port Hudson, after the departure of the nine-months' troops, Andrews had the 6th Michigan newly converted into the 1st Michigan heavy artillery, ten troops of the 3d Ma.s.sachusetts cavalry, Rawles's, Holcomb's, and Barnes's batteries; and besides these the infantry of the Corps d'Afrique, then in process of organization, including, at the end of August, the old 1st and 3d regiments and the five regiments of Ullmann's brigade-the 6th to the 10th. The return of the post for the 31st of August accounts for an effective force of 5,427; of these 1,815 belonged to the white troops and 3,612 to the colored regiments. The whole number of infantry regiments of the Corps d'Afrique, then authorized, was nineteen, of which only the first four were completed. Besides these there were two regiments of engineers, the 1st full, the 2d about half full, and three companies of heavy artillery, making the whole muster of colored troops in the department about 10,000. Towards the end of September the regiments of infantry numbered twenty, with ranks fairly filled. The Corps d'Afrique was then organized in two divisions of two brigades each, Ullmann commanding the First division and the senior colonel the Second. Rawles's battery was a.s.signed to the First division and Holcomb's to the Second. This division, however, never became much more than a skeleton, its First brigade being from the first detached by regiments for garrison duty in the various fortifications.
Andrews at once took up the work of organization and instruction in earnest, rightly conceiving it not merely possible, but even essential, to give to the officers and men of the colored regiments, thus formed into an army corps under his command, a degree of instruction, as well in tactics as in the details of a soldier's duty, higher then was to be found in any save a few picked regiments of the volunteer and regular service. The prejudice at first entertained against the bare idea of service with colored troops had not entirely disappeared, yet it had so far lost its edge that it was now possible to select from a number of applicants for promotion, especially to the higher grades, officers who had already shown their fitness and their capacity, while holding inferior commissions or serving in the ranks of the white regiments. Thus the original source of weakness in the composition of the first three regiments was avoided, and, small politics and local influence being of course absent, and Banks's instructions being urgent to choose only the best men, the colored regiments soon had a fine corps of officers. To the work now before him Andrews brought an equipment and a training such as few officers possessed. Experience had shown him the merit, the capacity, and the defects of the American volunteer officer. At the very bottom of these defects was the looseness of his early instruction in the elements of his duty; once wrongly taught by an instructor, himself careless or ignorant, he was likely to go on conscientiously making the same mistake to the end of his term. Realizing his opportunity, Andrews set about establis.h.i.+ng uniformity in all details of drill and duty by establis.h.i.+ng a school of officers. These he himself taught with the greatest pains and industry, correcting the slovenly, yet encouraging the willing, until the whole corps was brought up to a uniform standard, and on the whole a high one.
Stone succeeded Andrews as Chief of Staff at department headquarters on the 25th of July.
Franklin's staff, as commander of the Nineteenth Army Corps in the field, included Major Wickham Hoffman, a.s.sistant Adjutant-General; Colonel Edward L. Molineux, Acting a.s.sistant Inspector-General; Lieutenant-Colonel John G. Chandler, Chief Quartermaster; Lieutenant-Colonel Henry D. Woodruff, Chief Commissary of Subsistence; Surgeon John H. Rauch, Medical Director; Captain Henry W. Closson, Chief of Artillery; Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Bailey, Acting Chief Engineer; Captain William A. Pigman, Chief Signal Officer.
CHAPTER XXI. A FOOTHOLD IN TEXAS.
Banks now wished and proposed to move on Mobile, which he rightly supposed to be defended by about 5,000 men.(1) This had indeed been among the objects specially contemplated by his first instructions from the government, and in the progress of events had now become the next in natural order. Grant and Farragut were of the same mind; but other ideas had arisen, and now the government, anxious to avert the impending risk of European complications, deemed it of the first importance that the flag of the nation should, without delay, be restored at some point in Texas. The place and the plan were left discretionary with Banks, but peremptory orders were given him to carry out the object.(2)
Texas had no military value at that moment. To have overrun the whole State would hardly have shortened the war by a single day. The possession of Mobile, on the other hand, would, besides its direct consequences, have exercised an important if not a vital influence upon the critical operations in the central theatre of war; would have taken from the Confederates their only remaining line of railway communication between the Atlantic seaboard and the States bordering on the Mississippi; would have weakened the well-nigh fatal concentration against Rosecrans at Chickamauga and Chattanooga; would have eased the hard task of Sherman in his progress to Atlanta; and would have given him a safe line of retreat in the event of misfortune. What was it, then, that persuaded the government to put aside its designs on Mobile, to give up the offensive, to refrain from gathering the fruits of its successes on the Mississippi, in order to embark in the pursuit of objects avowedly ”other than military”?