Part 3 (1/2)
But the finest cannon have been received from England. Several magnificent guns of the Whitworth and Blakely patents I have seen, or heard described as doing good execution among the ”Yankees.” How many have been imported I can not tell, but surely a large number.
In explanation of my ignorance upon this point, let me state this fact. For some months after the blockade was declared, vessels from Europe were running it constantly, and the Southern papers boastfully told of their success. The Confederate authorities saw the evil of this publicity, and many months ago prohibited the notice of such arrivals. Hence we see no mention of them recently, but it is a great mistake to imagine that there are none. The constant arrival of new European arms and ammunition, the private talk in well-informed circles, the knowledge of the latest European news, and especially the letters from Confederate emissaries regularly received in the South, convince me that the blockade is by no means perfect. From the innumerable inlets all along the southeastern coast, and the perfect knowledge possessed of these by Rebel pilots, it is perhaps impossible that it should be so. The wisdom of the South in compelling the papers to omit all mention of the facts in this case, is most unquestionable. Well would it be for the North if the press were restrained from publis.h.i.+ng a thousand things, which do the readers no good, and which constantly give aid to the Rebel leaders.
As to small-arms, the energies of the South have been more fully developed in their manufacture than is dreamed of by the North. As early as April, 1861, Memphis had commenced the alteration of immense quant.i.ties of flintlock muskets, sent South during Floyd's term as Secretary of War. I saw this work progressing, even before Secession was a completed fact there. New Orleans turned out the best rifles I ever saw in the South. They were similar to the French Minie rifle, furnished with fine sword-bayonets. The Louisiana troops were mostly armed with these. At Nashville and Gallatin, Tennessee, rifles were also made, and I suppose in every considerable city in the South. In addition, it should be known that thousands of Government arms were in the hands of the people, all through the Southern States; how they procured them I do not know.
These were gathered up and altered or improved, and issued to the troops. Many of the regiments went into the field armed with every description of guns, from the small-bore squirrel-rifle and double-barreled shot-gun to the ponderous Queen Bess musket and clumsy but effective German Yager. The regiments were furnished as fast as possible with arms of one kind, and the others returned to the factories to be cla.s.sified and issued again. Sword-bayonets were fitted to double-barreled shot-guns, making them a very effective weapon. Others were cut down to a uniform length of about twenty-four inches, and issued to the cavalry. Common hunting-rifles were bored out to carry a Minie ball, twenty to the pound, and sword-bayonets fitted to them. One entire brigade of Tennesseans, under General Wm. H. Carroll, was armed with these guns.
When recovering from sickness at Nashville, I spent hours of investigation in the base of the capitol, used as an armory, where an immense amount of this work had been done. I have been told that the bas.e.m.e.nt of our National capitol has been used to prepare bread for loyal soldiers; _that_ bas.e.m.e.nt was used to prepare them bullets. At Bowling Green I saw many thousands of rifles and shot-guns which had been collected for alteration, and the machine shop of the Louisville and Nashville railroad was used as an armory.
Many of these guns were destroyed, and others left, when the town was evacuated. Nor should it be forgotten that almost every man of any position owned a pair of Colt's repeaters, many of them of the army and navy size. These were eagerly bought up by the Confederate authorities, who paid from thirty to sixty dollars apiece for them.
They were for the cavalry service. Add to these facts, that every country blacksmith made cutla.s.ses from old files, &c.; most of them clumsy but serviceable weapons in a close encounter. Artillery and cavalry sabers were manufactured at New Orleans, Memphis, and Nashville, and probably at other places.
In short, at the beginning of the year 1862, there was rather a surfeit than any scarcity of arms all over the South. Indeed, the energies of the entire people were employed in the production of every description of small-arms, and the enthusiasm displayed rivals the example of ancient Carthage, in her last fruitless struggle against the Romans. And this enthusiasm pervades all cla.s.ses. I doubt not, if the bow was considered a weapon of war now, the fair maidens of the South would gladly contribute their flowing tresses for bowstrings, if necessary, as did the women of Carthage. Their zeal and self-denial are seen in the fact that the ladies have given vast amounts of jewelry to be sold to build gunboats, fortifications, &c.; the women of Alabama actually contributing $200,000, as estimated, for the construction of a gunboat to protect the Alabama river. Does the reader ask, Why such sacrifice? THEY ARE IN EARNEST. They think they are fighting for property, home, and life.
Yet after all that has been said, the largest supply of small-arms comes from England and France. I have repeatedly heard it said that 300,000 stand of arms have been received from abroad;--that 65,000 came in one load by the Bermuda.
The imported guns are princ.i.p.ally Enfield, Minie, and Belgian rifles. The first Enfields received had been used somewhat, probably in the Crimean and Indian wars. The crown marks on the first importations, were stamped out with the initials of those who had bought them from the government; the later arrivals, _exhibit the crown marks uneffaced_. I have seen Enfield rifles of the manufacture of 1861 and 1862, with the stamp of the ”Tower” on the lock-plate! Officers, in opening and examining cases of these, would nod significantly to each other, as much as to say, ”_See the proof of England's neutrality!_” The French and Belgian rifles, among the best arms ever made, are mostly of recent manufacture, and elegantly finished. Yes, the South has arms in abundance, and good ones; and they know how to use them, and _they are resolved to do it_.
The question is often asked, Where does the ammunition come from to supply the Southern army? I would state in reply, that with the cargoes of arms, ammunition was supplied, at the rate of a thousand rounds for each gun. While engaged in the Ordnance Department, I often issued boxes of ammunition, which were put up in London for the Enfield rifle. The fixed ammunition of England is said by Southern officers to be the finest in the world. But much was also made at home. The largest laboratory for making cartridges, of which I had any knowledge, was in Memphis, afterward removed to Grenada, Mississippi. Powder-mills were established at various points, one of the largest at Dahlonega, Georgia; and old saltpeter caves were opened, the government offering forty-five cents per pound for saltpeter, and exempting all persons employed in its manufacture from military duty. Percussion caps were made in Richmond early in 1861, and great numbers were smuggled through the lines, in the early part of the war. As to the supply of ammunition, my opinion is, that the South will not lack while the rebellion lasts.
On the 17th of December, I left Camp Beauregard with a car-load of ammunition, attached to a train of twenty-five box-cars, containing the 27th Tennessee regiment, Colonel Kit Williams commanding, for Bowling Green, where a battle was expected. Colonel Williams'
orders were, to go through with all possible dispatch. Here was a new field for observation to me, and one of great interest. As soon as I saw my special charge, the car of ordnance, all right, I doffed my uniform for a fatigue dress, and took my position with the engineer, determined to learn all I could of the management of the locomotive. The knowledge I acquired pretty nearly cost me my life, as will soon be seen,--a new ill.u.s.tration that ”a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”
We left Feliciana in the morning, and ran down the New Orleans and Ohio railroad to Union City, 18 miles, thence on the Mobile and Ohio road to Humboldt, which we reached by five o'clock in the evening.
It had now grown dusk. During this time, I had mastered the working of the engine, when all was in good order; had noted the amount of steam necessary to run the train, the uses of the various parts of the engine, and had actually had the handling of the locomotive much of the way. When we reached Humboldt, where we took the Memphis and Clarksville railroad for Paris and Bowling Green, the engineer, Charles Little, refused to run the train on during the night, as he was not well acquainted with the road, and thought it dangerous. In addition, the head-light of the locomotive being out of order, and the oil frozen, he could not make it burn, and he could not possibly run without it. Colonel Williams grew angry, probably suspecting him of Union sentiments, and of wis.h.i.+ng to delay the train, cursed him rather roundly, and at length told him he should run it under a guard; adding, to the guard already on the engine, ”If any accident occurs, shoot the cursed Yankee.” Little was a Northern man. Upon the threat thus enforced, the engineer seemed to yield, and prepared to start the train. As if having forgotten an important matter, he said, hastily, ”Oh, I must have some oil,” and stepping down off the locomotive, walked toward the engine-house. When he was about twenty yards from the cars, the guard thought of their duty, and one of them followed Little, and called upon him to halt; but in a moment he was behind the machine-shop, and off in the dense woods, in the deep darkness. The commotion soon brought the colonel and a crowd, and while they were cursing each other all round, the firemen and most of the brakemen slipped off, and here we were with no means of getting ahead. All this time I had stood on the engine, rather enjoying the _melee_, but taking no part in it, when Colonel Williams, turning to me, said,
”Can not you run the engine?”
I replied, ”No, sir.”
”You have been on it as we came down.”
”Yes, sir, as a matter of curiosity.”
”Don't you know how to start and stop her!”
”Yes, that is easy enough; but if any thing should go wrong I could not adjust it.”
”No difference, no difference, sir; I must be at Bowling Green to-morrow, and you must put us through.”
I looked him in the eye, and said calmly, ”Colonel Williams, I can not voluntarily take the responsibility of managing a train with a thousand men aboard, nor will I be forced to do it under a guard who know nothing about an engine, and who would be as likely to shoot me for doing my duty as failing to do it; but if you will find among the men a fireman, send away this guard, and come yourself on the locomotive, I will do the best I can.”
And now commenced my apprentices.h.i.+p to running a Secession railroad train, with a Rebel regiment on board. The engine behaved admirably, and I began to feel quite safe, for she obeyed every command I gave her, as if she acknowledged me her rightful lord.
I could not but be startled at the position in which I was placed, holding in my hand the lives of more than a thousand men, running a train of twenty-five cars over a road I had never seen, running without a head-light, and the road so dark that I could only see a rod or two ahead, and, to crown all, knowing almost nothing of the business. Of course I ran slowly, about ten miles an hour, and never took my hand off the throttle or my eye from the road. The colonel at length grew confident, and almost confidential, and did most of the talking, as I had no time for conversation. When we had run about thirty miles, and every thing was going well, Colonel Williams concluded to walk back, on the top of the box-cars, to a pa.s.senger car which was attached to the rear of the train and occupied by the officers.
This somewhat hazardous move he commenced just as we struck a stretch of trestlework which carried the road over a gorge some fifty feet deep. As the locomotive reached the end of the trestlework the grade rose a little, and I could see through, or in, a deep cut which the road ran into, an obstruction. What it was, or how far ahead, I had almost no conception; but quick as thought--and thought is quick as lightning in such circ.u.mstances--I whistled for the brakes, shut off the steam, and waited the collision. I would have reversed the engine, but a fear that a reversal of its action would crowd up the cars on the trestlework and throw them into the gorge below, forbade; nor was there wisdom in jumping off, as the steep embankments on either side would prevent escape from the wreck of the cars when the collision came. All this was decided in an instant of time, and I calmly awaited the shock which I saw was unavoidable. Though the speed, which was very moderate before, was considerably diminished in the fifty yards between the obstacle and the head of the train, I saw that we would certainly run into the rear of another train, which was the obstruction I had seen.
The first car struck was loaded with hay and grain. My engine literally split it in two, throwing the hay right and left, and scattering the grain like chaff. The next car, loaded with horses, was in like manner torn to pieces, and the horses piled upon the sides of the road. The third car, loaded with tents and camp equipage, seemed to present greater resistance, as the locomotive only reached it, and came to a stand-still.
My emotions during these moments were most peculiar. I watched the remorseless pressure of the engine with almost admiration. It appeared to be deliberate, and resolute, and insatiable. The shock was not great, the advance seemed very slow; but it plowed on through car after car with a steady and determined course, which suggested at that critical moment a vast and resistless living agent. When motion ceased, I knew my time of trial was near; for if Colonel Williams had not been thrown from the top of the cars into the gorge below, he would soon be forward to execute his threat,--to shoot me if any accident occurred. I stepped out of the cab on the railing running along to the smoke-stack, so as to be out of view to one coming forward toward the engine, and yet to have him in the full light of the lantern which hung in the cab.