Part 1 (1/2)

Sketch of the First Kentucky Brigade.

by George B. Hodge.

In the general history which will go down to posterity of such immense bodies of men as were gathered under the banners of the Confederate States of America, it is not likely that more than a brief and cursory reference can or will be made to the services of so small a force as composed the First Kentucky Brigade. Yet the anomalous position which it occupied, in regard to the revolution, in having revolted against both State and Federal authority, exiling itself from home, from fortune, from kindred, and from friends--abandoning everything which makes life desirable, save honor--gave it an individuality which cannot fail to attract the attention of the calm student, who, in coming years, traces the progress of the mighty social convulsion in which it acted no ign.o.ble part. The State, too, from which it came, whatever may be its destiny or its ultimate fate, will remember, with melancholy and mournful interest, not, perhaps, unmingled with remorse, the career of that gallant band of men, who, of all the thousands in its borders inheriting the proud name and lofty fame of Kentuckians, stood forth fearlessly by deeds to express the sentiments of an undoubted majority of her people--disapprobation of wrong and tyranny. Children now in their cradles, youths as yet unborn, will inquire, with an earnest eagerness which volumes of recital cannot satisfy, how their countrymen demeaned themselves in the fierce ordeal which they had elected as the test of their patriotism; how they bore themselves on the march and in the bivouac; how in the trials of the long and sad retreat; how amid the wild carnage of the stricken field.

Fair daughters of the State will oftentimes, even amid the rigid censors.h.i.+p which forbids utterance of words, love to come in thought and linger about the lonely graves where the men of the Kentucky Brigade sleep, wrapped in no winding-sheets save their battle-clothes, beneath no monuments save the trees of the forest, torn and mutilated by the iron storm, in which the slumberers met death. It has seemed to me not improper, therefore, that the story should be told by one possessing peculiar facilities for acquiring knowledge of the movements of detached portions of the force, and who, in the capacity of a staff officer, under the directions of its General, issued every order and partic.i.p.ated in every movement of the brigade, who had not only the opportunity but the desire to do justice to all who composed it, from him who bore worthily the truncheon of the General, to those who not less worthily in their places bore their muskets as privates.

A deep interest will always be felt in the history of the effort which was made, by men strong in their faith in the correctness of republican forms of government, notwithstanding the tyranny which the great experiment in the United States had culminated in, to reconstruct from the shattered fragments of free inst.i.tutions upon which the armies of the Federal power were trampling, a social and political fabric, under the shelter of which they and their posterity might enjoy the rights of freemen. When the first seven Southern States seceded, and President Lincoln took the initial steps to coerce them, the Legislature of Kentucky, by an almost unanimous vote of the House of Representatives, declared that any attempt to do so by marching troops over her soil would be resisted to the last extremity.

The Governor had refused to respond to the call of the Executive for troops for this purpose. The Legislature approved his course. But here unanimity ceased; effort after effort was made in the Legislature to provide for the call of a sovereignty convention. The majority steadily resisted it. As a compromise, the neutrality of the State was a.s.sumed, acquiesced in by the sympathizers with the North because they intended to violate it when the occasion was ripe; acquiesced in by the Southern men because, while their impulses all prompted them to make common cause with their Southern brethren, they believed that the neutrality of the State, in presenting an effective barrier of seven hundred miles of frontier between the South and invasion, offered her more efficient a.s.sistance than the most active co-operation could have done. The Legislature adjourned; the canva.s.s commenced for a new General a.s.sembly; delegates were elected, pledged to strict neutrality; the Northern sympathizers had been vigorous, active, and energetic, and unscrupulous. They had in every county organized ”Home Guards;” arms were, by their connivance, introduced by the Federal Government in large quant.i.ties. On the first Monday in September the Legislature met, the mask was thrown off; neutrality was scouted; troops were openly levied for the Northern army, and the outraged Southern men revolted.

Early in the summer of 1861, bodies of the young men of the State had repaired to Camp Boone, in Tennessee, near the Kentucky line, where were forming regiments to be mustered into the service of the Confederate States. Most of these had been previously members of the State Guard of Kentucky, and consequently had enjoyed the advantage of systematic and scientific drill. They were rapidly organized into three regiments of infantry, known as the 2d, 3d, and 4th Kentucky Regiments of Volunteers, the 2d having as its Colonel, J. M. Hawes, recently an officer of the United States Army, but who, with a devotion which almost invariably manifested itself among the officers of Southern birth, promptly and cheerfully gave up the advantages of a certain and fixed position in a regularly organized army, to offer his sword and military knowledge to the cause of Southern independence. He was soon succeeded by Colonel Roger Hanson. The 3d had as its Colonel, Lloyd Tighlman, the 4th Robert P. Trabue. Colonel Tighlman, before his regiment was actively in service, was made a Brigadier, and its Lieut.

Colonel, Thompson, succeeded to the Colonelcy. These three regiments formed the nucleus of a brigade, to the command of which Brigadier General S. B. Buckner, recently Inspector General and active Commander of the Kentucky State Guard, was a.s.signed by President Davis. To this command were afterwards added the 5th Kentucky, commanded by Colonel Thomas Hunt, the 6th, commanded by Colonel Joseph Lewis, Cobb's battery, and Byrne's battery of artillery.

On the 17th of September, 1861, General Buckner, with some Tennessee troops and the Kentucky regiments, moved to Bowling Green, in Kentucky, and occupied it, fortifying it and fitting it for the base of active operations of the Confederate armies in Kentucky, which it became for some months. One regiment of infantry and a battery of artillery was thrown forward to the bridge on Green river, under command of Colonel Hawes--the bridge, shortly after, was burned by the Confederate troops. Capt. John Morgan, a few days subsequently to this, reached this command with one hundred men from the interior of Kentucky. These men were mounted, to serve as scouts; and here commenced that career which afterwards gained for their fearless leader a continental reputation as a bold, daring, and effective partisan officer. Few men, indeed, with means so limited, and in the midst of movements so grand and stupendous that the career of general officers have been lost sight of, have won such a name and reputation.

Of a mild and una.s.suming demeanor, gentle and affable in his manners, handsome in person, and possessed of all that polish of address which is supposed to best qualify men for the drawing-room and parlor, no enterprise, however dangerous, no reconnoissance, however tiresome and wearying, could daunt his spirits or deter him from his purpose. For months, with his handful of men, he swept the northern bank of Green river, cutting off the supplies of the enemy, destroying bridges necessary for their transportation, capturing their pickets, and hara.s.sing their flanks, moving with a celerity and secrecy which defied pursuit or detection. No commander of a detached post or guard of the enemy could flatter himself that distance from Bowling Green or disagreeableness of weather could protect him from a visit from Morgan. He was liable to be called upon at any hour, in any weather, or at any point beyond the intrenched camps of the Federal army. The earth might be soaked with rain, which for days had been falling, the roads might be impa.s.sable, the Green and Barren rivers with their tributaries might be swollen far beyond their banks, but over that earth and across those rivers, when least expected, came Morgan as with the swoop of an eagle; and, after destroying the munitions of the enemy, or capturing his guards, was away again, leaving behind him a polite note intimating he would call again soon, or perhaps telegraphing a dispatch to the nearest Federal commander, giving him full and precise particulars of the movements he had just made, and most provoking details of the damage he had just committed. Long after the Confederate army had retired from Kentucky, when the entire State was in undisputed possession of the Northern armies, many a Southern sympathizer found immunity and protection from maltreatment and outrage by the significant threat that Morgan would visit that neighborhood soon. And, indeed, during the disastrous retreat from Nashville, the tireless partisan, pa.s.sing through Eastern Tennessee and Kentucky, far in the rear of the Federal army, fell upon their train at Gallatin, Tennessee, and lit up the spirits of the despondent Tennesseans by one of his bold and daring strokes. Even when the Southern army had pa.s.sed the Tennessee river, when every available soldier of the South was supposed to be at Corinth to meet the overwhelming hosts of the invader, Morgan, gathering three or four hundred of his men, recrossed the river, fell upon the railroad train at Athens, Alabama, captured two hundred and eighty prisoners, and destroyed the cars. Ambushed, defeated, cut to pieces, and routed by greatly superior forces a few days afterwards, hardly had the news reached Louisville of his disaster, when, collecting two hundred of his scattered command, he fell like a thunderbolt upon the railroad train at Cave City, in the centre of Kentucky, capturing many prisoners, thousands of dollars in money, and destroying forty-three baggage cars laden with the enemy's stores.

Early in November, 1861, the Hon. John C. Breckinridge arrived at Bowling Green, when he resigned his seat as Senator from Kentucky, in the Federal Congress, and was immediately commissioned as Brigadier General, and a.s.signed to the command of the Kentucky Brigade, General Buckner a.s.suming command of a division of which the Kentucky Brigade was a component part. He a.s.sumed command on the 16th of November--having as his Chief of Staff and A. A. General, Captain George B. Hodge, and Aid-de-Camp, Thomas T. Hawkins. The brigade was ordered to Oakland Station, on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, where, in connection with Hindman's brigade, it remained in observation of the movements of the enemy on the north bank of the Green river, who was known to be in great force at Munfordsville, and in his cantonments extending back towards Elizabethtown, and was supposed to be only waiting the completion of the Green river bridge, which he was repairing, to advance his entire column, estimated at 80,000 men, on Bowling Green and Nashville. Behind the curtain of the brigades of Hindman and Breckinridge, Gen. Johnston was rapidly pus.h.i.+ng on the fortifications at Bowling Green; and by the latter part of January, 1862, they had become quite formidable.

It had, however, become doubtful whether the enemy would attempt the pa.s.sage of the Green river. It was certain, if he did so, his true attack would be developed in a flank movement, by way of Glasgow and Scottsville, on Nashville, while there was left him the alternative of ma.s.sing his troops at Paducah, then in his possession, and availing himself of his enormous supplies of water transportation, of moving by the Tennessee and c.u.mberland rivers on Forts Henry and Donelson, by a successful attack on those works, turning the flank of the Confederate forces at Bowling Green, opening the way to Nashville, and possibly enabling him to interpose between the Southern armies and their base of operations. To guard against this latter movement, the divisions of Generals Floyd and Pillow, and a portion of the division of General Buckner, were, about the 20th of January, moved, by way of Clarksville, to the support of Donelson. With this force marched the 2d Kentucky Regiment, which, after covering itself with imperishable glory in the terrible combat, of three days, at Fort Donelson, was, on the 16th of February, surrendered to the enemy; and pa.s.sing into captivity, ceased to partic.i.p.ate in the campaign of the spring and summer of 1862.

By the 10th of February, definite information had been obtained by General Johnston of the movements of the enemy. He was convinced that an overpowering force had moved upon Forts Donelson and Henry; that a heavy column was pursuing Crittenden, after defeating and routing him at Fis.h.i.+ng Creek, threatening Nashville on that flank; and that a force almost as large as the Confederate force at Bowling Green was held in hand by the enemy, to be poured across Green river and attack him in front, while the two bodies on his right and left united at Nashville and closed upon his rear. With the promptness and decision which characterized his high and serenely courageous mind, General Johnston determined to retire from Bowling Green and fall back on Nashville, where, uniting with the garrisons and troops in defense of Forts Donelson and Henry, should those places be found to be untenable, he could hold the divisions of the Federal General, Grant, in check, while he went to the a.s.sistance of Crittenden, and crushed the Federal column advancing by way of c.u.mberland Gap. The fortifications of Bowling Green were with every expedition dismantled; the government stores s.h.i.+pped as rapidly as possible to Nashville, and on the 9th of February an order was issued by Major General Hardee, commanding the central army of Kentucky, directing Generals Hindman and Breckinridge to repa.s.s the Barren river and be in Bowling Green by the night of the 10th. The admirable discipline which General Breckinridge had exercised and maintained in and over his command, enabled him to comply promptly with the order, without confusion and with no loss of stores, equipments, or supplies. His brigade, marching at 8 o'clock A. M., on the 10th pa.s.sed Barren river bridge at 3 P. M., and bivouacked three miles south of Bowling Green for the night. Hindman, being farther in the rear, lost a few of his scouts, and had hardly time to blow up the bridges over Barren river when the head of the enemy's column came into sight, and immediately commenced sh.e.l.ling the railroad depot and that portion of the track on which were lying the freight trains. These they succeeded in firing finally.

When the retreat of the army commenced, Breckinridge's brigade was const.i.tuted the rear guard--General Hardee, however, being still in rear with the cavalry and light artillery. Notwithstanding the fact that cold, freezing, and intensely inclement weather set in; notwithstanding the fact that evidences of the demoralization which a retreat in the presence of an enemy always produces were too apparent in many divisions of the army, yet the soldierly manner in which Breckinridge brought off his brigade, losing not a straggler from the ranks, not a musket or a tent, speaks more creditably for him and for them than the recital perhaps of their deeds of daring in the field could do.

In truth, history records no sadder tale than the retreat of the Kentuckians from their native State. For the rest of the army there was yet hope. Far to the South lay their homesteads, and their families rested still in security. Between those homesteads and those families and the advancing foe were innumerable places where battle might be successfully offered, or where at least the sons of the South might rear a rampart of their bodies over which the invader could not pa.s.s. Time, political complications, mutations of fortune, to which the most successful commanders are liable, might at any time transform the triumph of the Northmen into disaster and defeat. Months must elapse before the advancing columns of the enemy could reach the South, and ere that time arrived pestilence and malarious disease would, amid the fens and swamps of the gulf States, be crouching in their lair, ready to issue forth and grapple with the rash intruders from a more salubrious clime. But for the Kentuckians all was apparently lost. Behind their retiring regiments were the graves of their fathers, and the hearthstones about which cl.u.s.tered every happy memory of their childhood; there, in the possession of the invader, were the rooftrees beneath which were gathered wives who, with a wifely smile gleaming even through their tears, had bidden their husbands go forth to do battle for the right, promising to greet them with glad hearts when they returned in the hour of triumph; there were the fair faces which for many in that band had made the starlight of their young lives; there were young and helpless children, for whom the future promised but suffering, poverty, dest.i.tution, and want; there, too, were the thousands who had with anxious and waiting hearts, groaning beneath the yoke of the oppressor, counted the hours until the footsteps of their deliverers should be heard. On the 13th of February the brigade crossed the line between Kentucky and Tennessee; a night in which rain and sleet fell incessantly was succeeded by a day of intense and bitter cold. Everything which could contribute to crush the spirits and weaken the nerves of men, seemed to have combined. But for those dauntless hearts, the bitterness of sacrifice, the weakness of doubt and uncertainty had pa.s.sed, when, by a common impulse, the General, his staff, and the field officers dismounted, and, placing themselves on foot at the head of the column, with sad and solemn countenances, but with erect and soldierly bearing, marched for hours in the advance; and then was observed, for the first time in that brigade, through every grade and every rank, the look of high resolve and stern fort.i.tude, which, amid all the vicissitudes of its fortunes characterized the appearance of its members, and attracted the attention and comment of observers in every State through which it pa.s.sed. Henceforth for them petty physical discomforts, inconveniences of position, annoyances of inclement weather, scantiness of supplies, rudeness of fare, were nothing; they felt that they could not pa.s.s away until a great day should come which they looked forward to with unshaken confidence, and with patient watchfulness. They might never again dispense in their loved native State the generous hospitality which had become renowned throughout the continent; what remained to them of life might be pa.s.sed in penury and in exile. Their countrymen might never know how they had lived or where they had died; venal historians might even teach the rising generation to brand their memories with the stigma of treason and shame, but a day was yet to come of the triumph of which they felt they could not be deprived; days, weeks, months might elapse, they could bide their time. State after State might have to be traversed, great rivers might have to be pa.s.sed, mountain ranges surmounted, hunger and thirst endured, but the day and the hour would surely come when with serried ranks they should meet the foe, and their hearts burning with the memory of inexpiable wrongs, should, in the presence of the G.o.d of battles, demand and exact a terrible reckoning for all they had endured and all they had suffered.

The night of the 14th was pa.s.sed at Camp Trousdale, where summer barracks, which had been erected to accommodate the Tennessee volunteers stationed there for instruction, afforded but inadequate protection against the bitter cold of the night. These were the next night burned by the cavalry which covered the retreat, and afforded to the people of Tennessee the first evidence that their State was about to be invaded. The spirits of the army, however, were cheered by the accounts which General Johnston, with thoughtful care, forwarded, by means of couriers, daily, of the successful resistance of Fort Donelson. The entire army bivouacked in line of battle on the night of the 15th at the junction of the Gallatin and Nashville, and Bowling Green and Nashville roads, about ten miles from Nashville. It was confidently believed that by means of boats, a large portion of the force would be sent to the relief of Fort Donelson. But on the morning of the 16th, it began to be whispered, first, among the higher officers, spreading thence, in spite of every precaution, to the ranks, that Donelson not only had fallen, but that the divisions of Floyd, Pillow, and Buckner had been surrendered as prisoners of war.

Rumors of the wildest nature flew from regiment to regiment, the enemy were coming upon transports to Nashville--the bridges were being destroyed--the forts below the city were already surrendered--the retreat of the army was cut off--and as if to confirm the rumors, during the entire morning, the explosion of heavy artillery was heard in front and in the direction of Nashville. This proved to be caused by the firing of guns at Fort Zollicoffer, which, after having being heavily charged, were, with their muzzles in the earth, exploded to destroy them. At 4 P. M., on the 16th, the head of the brigade came in sight of the bridges at Nashville, across which, in dense ma.s.ses, were streaming infantry, artillery, and transportation and provision trains, but still with a regularity and order which gave promise of renewed activity and efficiency in the future. At nightfall General Johnston, who had established his head-quarters at Edgefield, on the northern bank of the c.u.mberland, saw the last of his wearied and tired columns defile across and safely establish themselves beyond.

Amid all the disasters and gloom of the retreat, the great captain had abundant cause of self-gratulation and confidence. He had reached Kentucky in October of the previous year to find the plan of occupation of the State to be upon three parallel lines of invasion, and yet all dependent upon a single point as the base of operations and the depot of supplies. Vicious and faulty as these unforeseen events proved it to have been, he had made the most of the situation.

He found an army of hastily levied volunteers, badly equipped, miserably clad, fully one half stricken down by disease, dest.i.tute of transportation, and with barely the shadow of discipline. Never able to wield more than eighteen thousand fighting men at and around Bowling Green, with these men he held at bay a force of the enemy of fully one hundred thousand men. The Southern States were protected from invasion. Time was obtained to drill and consolidate the volunteer force. The army was sustained in the fertile and abundant grain-producing regions of Kentucky, transportation gathered of the most efficient character, immense supplies of beef, corn, and pork collected from the surrounding country and safely garnered in depots further South for the coming summer campaign; and when, finally, the defeat of Crittenden, and the overwhelming attack on Donelson had apparently cut off his retreat, leaving him eighty miles in front of his base of operations and his magazines, he had with promptness, unrivaled military sagacity, and yet with mingled caution and celerity, dismantled his fortifications at Bowling Green, transmitted his heavy artillery and ammunition to Nashville, and extricated his entire army from the jaws of almost certain annihilation and capture.

The enemy came from the capture of Fort Donelson, in which he had lost in killed and wounded a force equal to the entire garrison of the place, to see, to his astonishment, an army in his front undismayed, and held in hand by a General who had just displayed to the world military qualities of the highest order, and a genius for strategy which seemed to antic.i.p.ate all his plans and as readily to baffle them. In the capture of the army defending Donelson the Confederacy lost, as prisoners of war, the gallant and idolized Buckner, Hanson and his splendid regiment, and many Kentuckians connected with the staff of those officers.

The night of February 16th found the army encamped safely upon the Murfreesboro and Nashville road; but it found the city of Nashville in a condition of wild and frantic anarchy.

The Capital of Tennessee, Nashville, contained, ordinarily, a population of about 30,000 souls. The revolution had made it the rendezvous of thousands fleeing from Kentucky, Missouri, and Western Virginia. So great was the throng of strangers, that lodging could be with difficulty procured at any price. Every house was filled and overflowing, boarding was held at fabulous prices, and private citizens whose wealth would, under most circ.u.mstances, have secured their domesticity from intrusion, were, perforce, compelled to accommodate and shelter strangers whom the misfortunes of exile and persecution had thrown upon the world. Many business houses and warehouses had been transformed into hospitals for the sick soldiery of the forces in Kentucky. So great was the influx of invalids that in many private families as many as three and four of the sick were to be found. Here, too, were brought hundreds of artificers and artisans, the government having established manufactories of various kinds to supply the wants of the army. In no single city of the Confederacy was to be found so large and so varied a supply of all those articles which are essential to the maintenance of a large and well-appointed army. During the fall and winter, under government patronage and a.s.sistance, many thousands of hogs and bullocks had been slaughtered and packed. These were stored in the city. Immense magazines of ammunitions, of arms, large and small, of ordnance stores, of clothing, of camp equipage, were located here. Capacious warehouses were filled with rice, flour, sugar, mola.s.ses, and coffee, to the value of many millions of dollars. The Chief Quarter-Master and Commissary were accustomed to fill at once the requisitions of the armies of Kentucky and of Missouri, of Texas and the Gulf. It may be safely estimated that, at the fall of Donelson, Nashville had crowded within its limits not less than sixty thousand residents. It never seems to have occurred to the citizens, or, indeed, the government, that Nashville was really in danger. A few unimportant and valueless earth-works had been thrown up, looking to its defense, but no systematic plan of fortification had been fixed upon or followed up; nothing but the situation of Fort Donelson, on the State line, prevented the enemy's gunboats, or even his unarmed transports, from coming up to the city and mooring at its wharves.

On Sunday morning, as the citizens were summoned by the church bells to the various houses of wors.h.i.+p in the city, congratulations were joyously exchanged upon the successful defense of Fort Donelson. Ere the hours of morning devotion had expired, the news of its fall came like a clap of thunder in a summer sky. The most excited and improbable stories were circulated, yet no exaggeration, no improbability, seemed too monstrous to command credence. Donelson was more than an hundred miles down the river, yet it was insisted that the enemy's boats were within a few miles of the city. The pa.s.sage of the army across the c.u.mberland and through the town added to the general panic and confusion. Consternation, terror, and shameful cowardice seemed to have seized alike upon the unthinking mult.i.tude and the officers who were expected to evince fort.i.tude and manliness; and now commenced a wild and frantic struggle for escape. Thousands who had never borne arms, who were, by all the laws of civilized warfare, exempt from the penalties of hostilities, were impressed with the conviction that the safety of their lives depended upon escaping from the doomed Capital. On all the railroads from the city trains were hourly run, bearing fugitives a few miles into the interior. The country roads were thronged with vehicles of every character and description; the hire of hacks rose to ten, twenty, fifty, even an hundred dollars for two or three hours' use. Night brought no cessation of the tumult. It rained in torrents, but all through the night might be seen carriages, wagons, drays, and tumbrils crowded with affrighted men and their families. Tender and delicate women, feeble and carefully nurtured children, were to be found, exposed to the inclemencies of the weather, in open carts and wagons, abandoning luxurious and costly houses for the precarious sustenance of doubtful and uncertain charity in their flights. Nor was the disgraceful panic confined to non-combatants or timid citizens. Men who had gained high reputation for courage and presence of mind seemed to have ignored every sentiment of manliness in their indecent haste to secure safety; nay, some who were high in military position, whose province and whose duty it was, peculiarly and particularly, to guard public property and protect government stores, used their official position to obtain trains of cars upon which were packed their household furniture, their carriages, their horses, and their private effects; and having effected this, they made haste to be gone.

Troops were left in the city by order of Gen. Johnston, but the mob spirit rose triumphant. For many days the store-houses of the government stood open and abandoned by their proper custodians. Every one was at liberty to help himself to what he desired; and it may well be supposed that the thousands who crowded the streets were not slow to avail themselves of the privilege. Not only were hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of provisions carried away and sequestered, but the very streets and highways were strewn with bales and packages of raiment and clothing hastily taken away and as recklessly abandoned. It was currently estimated that public property to the value of at least five millions of dollars was dissipated and destroyed in a few hours. There were not wanting, however, n.o.ble and brilliant examples of firmness, courage, and forethought. On Tuesday following the surrender, the wagonmaster of the 2d Kentucky Regiment reached the head-quarters of the Kentucky Brigade with fourteen empty wagons with which he had escaped from Fort Donelson. These the gallant Breckinridge loaded with supplies of subsistence and clothing, which were the means of comfort to his command months after the abandonment of Nashville. Even when the enemy was hourly expected in the city he might have been seen on the northern bank of the c.u.mberland superintending the transit of herds of well kept cattle brought from Kentucky, that his command might be furnished with fresh rations during their further retreat.

Slowly and steadily the army fell back from Nashville until, on the 22d of February, it reached Murfreesboro. Effecting then a junction with the army of General Crittenden, which had retreated from Fis.h.i.+ng Creek, and for the first time since the departure from Bowling Green, General Johnston found himself in condition to offer and accept battle from the enemy.

It was evident to the great man who commanded the department of the West that he could not linger in Tennessee. He was doubtless able to successfully resist the force under Gen. Buell which had now occupied Nashville, but it was well known that none of the force occupied in the reduction of Donelson had ascended the river. With unlimited supplies of water transportation, nothing was easier than for them to pa.s.s round the peninsula, and, ascending the Tennessee river, land a force in his rear and place him in the same dilemma from which he had just so skillfully extracted his army. A retreat behind the Tennessee was inevitable, and the strategical position he occupied at Murfreesboro opened to him three routes. He might pa.s.s over to the turnpike road from Nashville, through Columbia and Pulaski, parallel with the railroad, and cross at Florence, or, throwing himself into the mountain pa.s.ses of Eastern Tennessee, in their wild gorges and rugged ravines, he might defy pursuit and retreat upon Chattanooga.

This, however, would have been a virtual abandonment of the Mississippi and its valley. Still a third route was open. Due south from Murfreesboro ran a road through a comparatively unfrequented country, pa.s.sing directly through Huntsville to Decatur, on the southern bank of the Tennessee river. While this route offered the advantage of a middle course between the two great lines of macadamized roads east and west of him, enabling him, in case of necessity, to pa.s.s over to either; it was not without objections.

Lying, for the most part, through cultivated and deep bottoms, on the edge of Northern Alabama, it rises abruptly to cross the great plateau thrown out from the c.u.mberland Mountains, here nearly a thousand feet above the surrounding country, and full forty miles in width, covered with dense forests of timber, yet barren and sterile in soil, and wholly dest.i.tute of supplies for either man or beast. Two weeks of unintermitting rain had softened the earth until the surface resembled a vast swamp; but along this route the Commander-in-Chief determined to pa.s.s; and, after occupying a week in reorganizing his army, a cloud of cavalry, consisting of Morgan's Squadron, the 1st Kentucky Cavalry, the Texas Rangers, Wirt Adams', Scott's, and Forrest's regiments were thrown out in the direction of the enemy, with orders, as they fell back, to burn the cotton and destroy the bridges; and the further retreat thus commenced.

History records no example of a retreat conducted with such success under such adverse circ.u.mstances. Rain continued to fall almost without intermission; it was spring, the season most unpropitious for transits over country roads, and the pa.s.sage of such numbers of horses and wagons, rendered the route literally a river of liquid mud. For miles at times the wagons would be submerged in ooze and mire up to the hubs of their wheels, while the saturated condition of the earth rendered comfortable encampments impossible. The ascent of the plateau, although only about two miles of distance, consumed a day for each brigade, and time was everything to men in their condition; yet steadily, earnestly, hopefully, they toiled on until, on the 10th of March, the head of the army had reached a point within three miles of Decatur, but with the Tennessee swollen far beyond its banks, flooding the country for miles in every direction, and sweeping with resistless force over the roads and fords. Happily, at this point, the Memphis and Charleston Railroad crossed the Tennessee; and, as a precaution against its freshets, the railroad company had constructed an embankment fifty feet in height and two miles in length on which were laid their rails; this embankment was still ten or twelve feet above the surrounding waters, and reached to the terminus of the bridge. Its narrow width of seven feet precluded the possibility of anything like orderly movement; but over it were pa.s.sed the infantry and cavalry without cessation either day or night. The artillery and baggage-wagons were placed on platform cars, and at a given signal the track was cleared while they were run to and over the bridge.

Patience, perseverance, and indomitable will finally accomplished the work, and on the 16th the Kentucky Brigade, bringing up the rear of the army, marched through Decatur. A month had elapsed since the fall of Donelson, but the army was at last behind the Tennessee, and all was not yet lost. Still the danger was not yet over. The enemy commanded the river and might, by vigorous movements, prevent the junction of the army of Central Kentucky with that of General Beauregard, which had fallen back from Columbus, in Kentucky, and was now endeavoring to unite with that under General Johnston. In truth, it seemed that, if the enemy was prompt and vigorous in his movements, this would be impossible. The Memphis and Charleston Railroad runs nearly due east and west, pursuing for ninety miles an almost parallel course with the Tennessee river--never diverging from it more than twenty miles, and in many places approaching to within eight or ten.

Numerous streams which drain the country and empty into the main river were crossed by it, and on the margins of these streams are almost invariably found swamps requiring heavy trestle-work to support the rail. A little celerity on the part of the enemy might at any hour enable him to destroy a section of this trestle-work, and thus cut off the communication. To transport the army by the country roads was impossible, the torrent-like rains which had impeded the progress of the army through Tennessee had continued to fall after the pa.s.sage of the river. In many places the country was covered with sheets of water too deep to be forded, while the roads, not thus submerged, were impa.s.sable for hors.e.m.e.n. It was difficult for the various corps to pa.s.s far enough from Decatur to find encampments. Within a mile of the town might be counted scores of wagons, on the various roads, sunk to their beds in mire, and which the quagmire of oozing earth around them prevented the possibility of unloading. Hindman's brigade of Arkansas troops was thrown forward by rail to Courtland immediately. Crittenden was pushed beyond him to Iuka, and on the 21st the Kentucky Brigade, under General Breckinridge, was dispatched, with its field pieces, ammunition, and baggage, to Burnsville, within fifteen miles of Corinth, by cars, while the horses and wagons were sent to struggle through as best they could on the dirt roads.