Part 9 (1/2)
And he hit him in the eye And he sent him to the happy land of Canaan.
Ho! boys, ho!
For the Union go!
Hip hurrah for the happy land of freedom.”
The loyal Kentuckians were in great glee and rejoiced over the victory. It was their battle against rebel invaders from Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama, who were first met by their own troops of Wolford's First cavalry and the Fourth Kentucky infantry, whose blood was the first to be shed in defense of the Stars and Stripes; and their grat.i.tude went out to their neighbors from Minnesota, Indiana and Ohio who came to their support and drove the invaders out of their state. On Feb. 24, 1862, the Second Minnesota was again in Louisville, where the regiment had admirers and warm friends in the loyal ladies, who as evidence of their high appreciation, though the mayor of the city, Hon. J.M. Dolph, presented to the Second regiment a silk flag.
The mayor said. ”Each regiment is equally ent.i.tled to like honor, but the gallant conduct of those who came from a distant state to unite in subduing our rebel invaders excites the warmest emotions of our hearts.”
On Jan. 25 President Lincoln's congratulations were read to the regiment, and on Feb. 9, at Waitsboro, Ky., the following joint resolution of the Minnesota legislature was read before the regiment:
Whereas, the n.o.ble part borne by the First regiment, Minnesota infantry, in the battles of Bull Run and Ball's Bluff, Va., is yet fresh in our minds; and, whereas, we have heard with equal satisfaction the intelligence of the heroism displayed by the Second Minnesota infantry in the late brilliant action at Mill Springs, Ky.:
Therefore be it resolved by the legislature of Minnesota, That while it was the fortune of the veteran First regiment to shed l.u.s.ter upon defeat, it was reserved for the glorious Second regiment to add victory to glory.
Resolved, that the bravery of our n.o.ble sons, heroes whether in defeat or victory, is a source of pride to the state that sent them forth, and will never fail to secure to them the honor and the homage of the government and the people.
Resolved, That we sympathize with the friends of our slain soldiers, claiming as well to share their grief as to partic.i.p.ate in the renown which the virtues and valor of the dead have conferred on our arms.
Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions, having the signature of the executive and the great seal of the state, be immediately forwarded by the governor to the colonels severally in command of the regiments, to be by them communicated to their soldiers at dress parade.
The battle at Mill Springs was the first important victory achieved by the Union army in the Southwest after the outbreak of the rebellion, and the result of that engagement occasioned great rejoicing throughout the loyal North. Although the battle was fought forty-five years ago, quite a number of men engaged in that historic event are still living in St. Paul, a number of them actively engaged in business. Among the number are J.W. Bishop, J.C. Donahower, M.C.
Tuttle, R.A. Lanpher, M.J. Clum, William Bircher, Robert G. Rhodes, John H. Gibbons, William Wagner, Joseph Burger, Jacob J. Miller, Christian Dehn, William Kemper, Jacob Bernard, Charles F. Myer, Phillip Potts and Fred Dohm.
THE GREAT BATTLE OF PITTSBURG LANDING.
A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF ONE OF THE GREATEST AND MOST SANGUINARY BATTLES OF THE CIVIL WAR--TERRIBLE LOSS OF LIFE--GALLANT ACTION OF THE FIRST MINNESOTA BATTERY--DEATH OF CAPT. W.H. ACKER.
The battle of Pittsburg Landing on the 6th and 7th of April, 1862, was one of the most terrific of the many great battles of the great Civil war. It has been likened to the battle of Waterloo. Napoleon sought to destroy the army of Wellington before a junction could be made with Blucher. Johnston and Beauregard undertook to annihilate the Army of the Tennessee, under Gen. Grant, before the Army of the c.u.mberland, under Buell, could come to his a.s.sistance. At the second battle of Bull Run Gen. Pope claimed that Porter was within sound of his guns, yet he remained inactive. At Pittsburg Landing it was claimed by military men that Gen. Buell could have made a junction with Grant twenty-four hours sooner and thereby saved a terrible loss of life had he chosen to do so. Both generals were subsequently suspended from their commands and charges of disloyalty were made against them by many newspapers in the North. Gen. Porter was tried by court-martial and dismissed from the service. Many years after this decision was revoked by congress and the stigma of disloyalty removed from his name. Gen. Buell was tried by court-martial, but the findings of the court were never made public. Gen. Grant did not think Gen. Buell was guilty of the charges against him, and when he became commander-in-chief of the army in 1864 endeavored to have him restored to his command, but the war department did not seem inclined to do so.
About two weeks before the battle of Pittsburg Landing Gen. Grant was suspended from the command of the Army of the Tennessee by Gen.
Halleck, but owing to some delay in the transmission of the order, an order came from headquarters restoring him to his command before he knew that he had been suspended. Gen. Grant's success at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson made his superiors jealous of his popularity. He was ordered arrested by Gen. McClellan, but the order was held up by the war department until Gen. Grant could be heard from. The reason for his arrest was that he went to Nashville to consult with Buell without permission of the commanding general. Dispatches sent to Grant for information concerning his command was never delivered to him, but were delivered over to the rebel authorities by a rebel telegraph operator, who shortly afterward joined the Confederate forces.
Many years after the war Gen. Badeau, one of Grant's staff officers, was in search of information for his ”History of Grant's Military Campaigns,” and he unearthed in the archives of the war department the full correspondence between Halleck, McClellan and the secretary of war, and it was not until then that Gen. Grant learned the full extent of the absurd accusations made against him.
After the battle of Pittsburg Landing Gen. Halleck a.s.sumed personal command of all the forces at that point and Gen. Grant was placed second in command, which meant that he had no command at all. This was very distasteful to Gen. Grant and he would have resigned his commission and returned to St. Louis but for the interposition of his friend, Gen. W.T. Sherman. Gen. Grant had packed up his belongings and was about to depart when Gen. Sherman met him at his tent and persuaded him to refrain. In a short time Halleck was ordered to Was.h.i.+ngton and Grant was made commander of the Department of West Tennessee, with headquarters at Memphis. Gen. Grant's subsequent career proved the wisdom of Sherman's entreaty.
When Gen. Halleck a.s.sumed command he constructed magnificent fortifications, and they were a splendid monument to his engineering skill, but they were never occupied. He was like the celebrated king of France, who ”with one hundred thousand men, marched up the hill and then down again.” Gen. Halleck had under his immediate command more than one hundred thousand well equipped men, and the people of the North looked to him to administer a crus.h.i.+ng blow to the then retreating enemy. The hour had arrived--the man had not.
”Flushed with the victory of Forts Henry and Donelson,” said the envious Halleck in a dispatch to the war department, previous to the battle, ”the army under Grant at Pittsburg Landing was more demoralized than the Army of the Potomac after the disastrous defeat of Bull Run.”
Soon after the battle the venerable Gen. Scott predicted that the war would soon be ended--that thereafter there would be nothing but guerrilla warfare at interior points. Gen. Grant himself in his memoirs says that had the victory at Pittsburg Landing been followed up and the army been kept intact the battles at Stone River, Chattanooga and Chickamauga would not have been necessary.
Probably the battle of Pittsburg Landing was the most misunderstood and most misrepresented of any battle occurring during the war. It was charged that Grant was drunk; that he was far away from the battleground when the attack was made, and was wholly unprepared to meet the terrible onslaught of the enemy in the earlier stages of the encounter. Gen. Beauregard is said to have stated on the morning of the battle that before sundown he would water his horses in the Tennessee river or in h.e.l.l. That the rebels did not succeed in reaching the Tennessee was not from lack of dash and daring on their part, but was on account of the st.u.r.dy resistance and heroism of their adversaries. According to Gen. Grant's own account of the battle, though suffering intense pain from a sprained ankle, he was in the saddle from early morning till late at night, riding from division to division, giving directions to their commanding officers regarding the many changes in the disposition of their forces rendered necessary by the progress of the battle. The firm resistance made by the force under his command is sufficient refutation of the falsity of the charges made against him. Misunderstanding of orders, want of co-operation of subordinates as well as superiors, and rawness of recruits were said to have been responsible for the terrible slaughter of the Union forces on the first day of the battle.
The battle of Pittsburg Landing is sometimes called the battle of s.h.i.+loh, some of the hardest lighting having been done in the vicinity of an old log church called the Church of s.h.i.+loh, about three miles from the landing.