Chapter VII: Part 7

After General Sherman came General McPherson, that ideal soldier, who commanded the Army until he fell in the great Battle of Atlanta, on the 22d of July. Upon his death, General Logan took command of the Army, as the senior officer present, and at the end of the battle of July 22d he could say that he had met and defeated Hood's whole Army in the greatest battle of that campaign.

Following General Logan came General O. O. Howard, the only General taken from another Army to command it in all the history of the Army of the Tennessee, or even any of its Corps. The next day after assuming command General Howard led the Army into the great battle of the 28th of July, which the Confederates said was not a battle, but a simple killing and slaughtering of their forces. He remained in command until the end of the Rebellion, and at the end of the war generously gave way to General Logan, so that one of its original members might command it at the great review here in Washington--an act that could come only from such a just and thoughtful soldier as Howard.

I speak of our Army's commanders first, as an Army takes its habits and character from its head; and probably no other Army in the world was so fortunate as to have always at its head great soldiers and great commanders, recognized as such the world over--two of them the peers of any commander that ever stood up in a great conflict.

The Army of the Tennessee covered more ground in its campaigns than all the other Armies combined, and all its campaigns were marked by some great struggle, battle, or movement that challenged the admiration of the world. First came Fort Donelson, next Vicksburg, and following that Chattanooga, where it fought on both flanks in that great battle, one Division taking the point of Lookout Mountain above the clouds. Then came the Atlanta campaign; following that the strategical march to the sea; and, finally, that bold movement from Savannah to Goldsboro, which is considered by the best critics as one of the boldest and best-planned campaigns of history--one in which every chance was taken, and every opportunity given the enemy to concentrate upon an inferior force.

The record of this Army is probably the most satisfactory of any that ever existed, as it was harmonious in all its parts and had no jealousies, each of its units to the best of its ability helping the others. Again, it was modest; it struck blow after blow, and let the world sing its praises. All its campaigns were great successes, and it never lost a battle. All its Army, Corps, Division, and Brigade commanders were exceptionally able men, and were seldom relieved except to assume more important commands. Its experiences were more varied than any other Army, for in its campaigns, battles, and marches, reaching from the Missouri River to the Atlantic, at Washington, over a territory two thousand miles long and five hundred miles wide, it opened the Mississippi, it forced its way to the sea, it was reviewed by the Government of the nation here in this city, and it disbanded and the men went to their homes without causing an unpleasant comment or a painful thought in all this broad land.

The Society of the Army of the Tennessee is endeavoring to perpetuate its history and memories by erecting here in this capital of our great nation monuments to the memory of its dead commanders which will place before the world not only their deeds, but the great events in which our Army took so important a part. First came General McPherson, as he was the first to fall, in the great Battle of Atlanta. He fell just after watching the attack in the rear on the Sixteenth Army Corps, which held the key to the situation. He was a dear friend of mine; and the last words he spoke were in praise of the fighting of that Corps. General Sherman, in reporting his death, spoke of him as follows:

General McPherson fell in battle, booted and spurred, as the gallant
and heroic gentleman should wish. Not his the loss, but the country's,
and the army will mourn his death and cherish his memory as that of
one who, though comparatively young, had risen by his merit and
ability to the command of one of the best armies which the nation had
called into existence to vindicate her honor and integrity. History
tells of but few who so blended the grace and the gentleness of the
friend with the dignity, courage, faith and manliness of the soldier.
His public enemies, even the men who directed the fatal shot, never
spoke or wrote of him without expressions of marked respect. Those
whom he commanded loved him even to idolatry, and I, his associate and
commander, fail in words adequate to express my opinion of his great
worth.

General McPherson was so dear to our old Army that the great victory at the Battle of Atlanta was never spoken of by our Army except to express our great grief at the loss of our commander. His faith in what he could accomplish with our Army was unbounded. He spoke of us on July 4, 1863, as follows:

With tireless energy, with sleepless vigilance, by night and by day,
with battery and with rifle-pits, with trench and mine, you made your
sure approaches, until, overcome by fatigue and driven to despair in
the attempt to oppose your irresistible progress, the whole garrison
of over 30,000 men, with all their arms and munitions of war, have, on
this, the anniversary of our National Independence, surrendered to the
invincible troops of the Army of the Tennessee. The achievements of
this hour will give a new meaning to this memorable day, and Vicksburg
will brighten the glow of the patriot's heart which kindles at the
mention of Bunker Hill and Yorktown. This is indeed an auspicious day
for you. The God of Battle is with you. The dawn of a conquered peace
is breaking upon you. The plaudits of an admiring world will hail you
wherever you go, and it will be an ennobling heritage, surpassing all
riches, to have been of the Army of the Tennessee on the Fourth of
July, 1863.

Next we erected the statue, facing Pennsylvania Avenue, of General John A. Rawlins, who, above all, represented the organization and spirit of our great Army, and who shared its fortunes from beginning to end as Chief of Staff of its first and greatest commander. In 1873, upon the death of General Rawlins, General John A. Logan spoke of him thus:

But there is one whose tongue is now still in death whose name I
cannot forbear to mention; one who, though gone from our midst, is
with us in memory: for who can forget John A. Rawlins? Faithful in
every duty, true in every trust, though dead he is not forgotten;
though gone forever, yet he will ever live in affectionate remembrance
in the hearts of all who knew him. His name is woven in indelible
colors in the history of our country, and is linked with a fame that
is undying.

General Rawlins, in giving a history of the Army of the Tennessee, paid this tribute to it:

In no army did the soldier enjoy greater liberty, consistent with
military discipline, than in the Army of the Tennessee, and in none
were his rights and his life more carefully guarded.

The subordination of the Army of the Tennessee to the policies and
acts of the Government affecting the institution of slavery in the
prosecution of the war, is worthy of the highest commendation. It had
no policy of its own to propose, but went forth, as expressed by the
legislative branch of the Government, to do battle in no spirit of
oppression, or for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, or purpose
of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established
institutions of the States in rebellion; but to defend and maintain
the supremacy of the constitution, and to preserve the Union with all
the dignity, equality and rights of the several States unimpaired.

The Army of the Tennessee did great deeds in all the departments of
the States' service, and individually and collectively illustrated in
a peculiar manner the qualities of noble American character which
gained success in the field, preserved its fruits by subsequent
statesmanship, and by exalted virtue crowned victory with the
attributes of peace and justice.

In April, 1900, we unveiled the beautiful and life-like monument to General John A. Logan, that brilliant, magnetic soldier, our comrade from Cairo to Louisville. Of him, at the unveiling, President McKinley spoke as follows:

Logan's career was unique. His distinction does not rest upon his
military achievements alone. His services in the Legislature of his
own State, in the National House of Representatives, and in the Senate
of the United States, would have given him an equally conspicuous
place in the annals of the country. He was great in the forum and in
the field.

He came out of the war with the highest military honors of the
volunteer soldier. Brilliant in battle and strong in military council,
his was also the true American spirit, for when the war was ended he
was quick and eager to return to the peaceful pursuits of civil life.

General Logan's love and devotion to us only ended with his life, and at one of our reunions he characterized our work thus:

The Army of the Tennessee was not limited in its scope; the theater of
its operations and the extent of its marches, comprehending within
their bounds an area greater than Greece and Macedonia in their
palmiest days, and greater than most of the leading kingdoms of Europe
at the present day, reached from the Missouri River on the north
nearly to the Gulf of Mexico on the south, and from the Red River of
Louisiana to the Atlantic Ocean.

The friendship and loyalty of Sherman to Grant was the first great cause of the success of both, and for the harmony that existed in the Army of the Tennessee. Sherman fell under the command of Grant at Paducah, in the spring of 1862, holding a small command. He was the ideal soldier, as he dropped from a Department and Army commander to that of a post, and later a Division, without a murmur. Sherman's first words to Grant, on February 15, 1862, were these:

I should like to hear from you, and will do everything in my power to
hurry forward to you reinforcements and supplies, and if I could be of
service myself would gladly come without making any question of rank
with you or General Smith, whose commissions are of the same date.

On the same date he wrote again:

Command me in any way. I feel anxious about you, as I know the great
facilities they [the enemy] have of concentration, by means of the
river and railroads, but have faith in you.

The monument to our old commander, General Sherman, is nearly complete. It is upon these grounds we expect to unveil it next October, and, as President of the Society of the Army of the Tennessee, and as President of the Commission which has in charge the erection of the monument, I give you a cordial invitation to be present. You will receive due notice, and proper arrangements will be made for the occasion, and you will meet here your comrades of the Armies of the Cumberland, the Potomac, and the Ohio, who have already signified their intention of being present to honor the memory of our old commander.

And now, my comrades, it is with the greatest satisfaction that I say to you that after seven years' continued effort, this year we obtained an appropriation from Congress of $250,000 to be used in the erection of a monument upon these grounds to General U. S. Grant, (and the model for it will soon be selected,) to this modest, charitable, and just soldier and statesman. The whole world has given its tribute. From those whom we fought and defeated have come the most gallant words of praise and touching sympathy. President Lincoln, above all others, recognized his power and ability when he handed him his commission and gave him command of all the Armies, and assured him that he should not in any way interfere with him,--armed him with all the powers of the President, with _carte blanche_ to use them as he saw fit. Grant made his answer at Appomattox, bringing peace to our nation and gratitude to the conquered. General Grant was a man of few words, and when called upon to speak of the Army of the Tennessee, paid it this tribute:

As an Army, the Army of the Tennessee never sustained a single defeat
during four years of war. Every fortification which it assailed
surrendered. Every force arrayed against it was either defeated,
captured, or destroyed. No officer was ever assigned to the command of
that Army who had afterwards to be relieved from it, or to be reduced
to another command. Such a history is not accident.

And now, my comrades, one of our number who has left us by an assassin's hand, whose heart, words and acts were ever for us, who from a Major in our Army became the best-loved President of our nation, Comrade William McKinley, at one of our gatherings paid this tribute to you:

It is recorded that in eighteen months' service the Army of the
Tennessee captured 80,000 men, with flags and arms, including 600
guns--a greater force than was engaged on either side in the terrible
battle of Chickamauga. From the fields of triumph in the Mississippi
Valley it turned its footsteps towards the eastern seaboard, brought
relief to the forces at Chattanooga and Nashville, pursued that
peerless campaign from Atlanta to the seaboard under the leadership of
the glorious Sherman, and planted the banners of final victory on the
parapets of Fort McAllister.

It is said that the old Army of the Tennessee never lost a battle and
never surrendered a flag. Its Corps badges--"forty rounds" of the
Fifteenth Corps; the fleeting arrow of the Seventeenth Corps; the
disc, from which four bullets have been cut, of the Sixteenth
Corps--are all significant of the awful business of cruel war, all of
them suggestive of the missiles of death.

It gave the Federal Army Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan; McPherson,
Howard, Blair, Logan, Hazen, John E. Smith, C. F. Smith, Halleck,
Rawlins, Prentiss, Wallace, Porter, Force, Leggett, Noyes,
Hickenlooper, C. C. Walcutt, and your distinguished President, who
flamed out the very incarnation of soldierly valor before the eyes of
the American people; all have a secure place in history and a secure
one in the hearts of their countrymen.

On this anniversary, as my closing words to you, two verses of General John Tilson's tribute are most appropriate:

Ho! comrades of the brave old band, we gather here once more,
With smiling eye and clasping hand, to fight our battles o'er.
To quaff from out the brimming cup of old-time memory,
And bright relight the pathway of our old Tennessee.
As myriad sparks of war's romance our meetings warm inspire;
The heady fight, the anxious march, the jolly bivouac fire;
The days of doubt, of hope, of care, of danger, and of glee;
Oh, what a world of racy thought illumines Tennessee!

Our roster thins; as years pass on we drop off one by one;
Ere long, too soon, to yearly call, there will be answer--none;
Then as along the record page these mourning columns creep,
The whisper comes to closer still our living friendships keep.
Another thought we forward cast to that not distant day,
When left of all our gallant band will be one veteran gray,
And here's to him who meets alone--wherever he may be,
The last, the lone survivor of the grand old Tennessee.

Commanding the Army and Department of the Missouri.

Front Row--Colonel T. J. Haines, U. S. A., C. S.; Major-General G. M. Dodge; Colonel William Myers, U. S. A., Q. M.; Colonel James H. Baker, Tenth Minnesota, P. M. G. Back Row--Colonel Benjamin L. W. Bonneville, U. S. A. (retired), C. S. of Musters, age 72; Captain William Holcke, A. D. C, Chief of Engineers; Major J. F. Randolph, U. S. A., Surgeon; Captain Frank Enos A. A. G.; Colonel John V. Dubois, A. D. C, Inspector-General; Lieutenant Edward Jonas, Fiftieth Illinois, A. D. C.; Major John W. Barnes, A. A. G.; Major Lucien Eaton, Judge Advocate; Lieutenant George C. Tichenor, A. D. C.]

THE CAMPAIGN IN THE WEST

ADDRESS TO THE ARMY OF THE SOUTH-WEST
AT NATIONAL ENCAMPMENT, G. A. R.
WASHINGTON, D. C.
OCTOBER, 1902

My connection with the United States forces west of the Mississippi River commenced at the beginning of the war, when I took my Regiment, the Fourth Iowa, to St. Louis, and fell under the command of Fremont. I took part in the campaigns of that Department until after the Battle of Pea Ridge, when I left the command and went to the Army of the Tennessee. After the Atlanta campaign, in November, 1864, I returned to Missouri as commander of that Department and Army.

Of the transactions of the troops south of Missouri I have very little knowledge; but I know that the troops which served west of the Mississippi never had credit for the amount of work, hardships and exposures they endured. Owing to the fact of there having been fought there but two great battles, Wilson's Creek and Pea Ridge, and two minor ones, what they did was swallowed up in the great events that occurred east of the Mississippi. Even Pope's campaign opening up a portion of the Mississippi is hardly ever spoken of.

The Battle of Wilson's Creek, the first signal contest west of the Mississippi, was fought before my command reached St. Louis. The history of that battle, and the credit that is due to the commander of that Army, General Lyon, and his men, are well known. There participated in the battle many officers who were afterwards greatly distinguished; among them Schofield, Sturgis, Hunter, and others. It was the first battle that called attention to the West, and to the troops west of the Mississippi. That battle was lost because a portion of the command did not comprehend and fulfill General Lyon's orders. This mistake would have been overcome if it had not been for the loss in the battle of its commander, General Lyon. But the fighting of the troops and the boldness of the movement immediately attracted the attention of the country, and held it until after the battle of Pea Ridge.

The Army of the Southwest, which General Curtis commanded, and which traveled three hundred miles from its base without water or rail communication, and lived off a barren country, and which fought that decisive Battle of Pea Ridge and cleared the country until nearly the end of the war of any organized force of the enemy, had more marching and endured more suffering than the great Armies I was connected with east of the Mississippi, and its three days' fighting at Pea Ridge compared favorably with any of our battles, when the numbers engaged are considered.

Then again, at the end of the war, the sufferings of the troops that I took onto the plains in the Indian campaigns in the winters of 1864-5, 1865-6, were far beyond any of the sufferings of any of our Armies during the Civil War. Their exposures through the cold weather, and the brutalities and butcheries of the Indians, which it was impossible for them to avenge or retaliate, were beyond description.

Our early campaign in Missouri was without previous experience. It was simply one soldier standing up against another in battle, and we had to learn all the tricks of camp life, and from experience how to take care of our soldiers.

There were a great many funny incidents in the Pea Ridge campaign. The Southwestern Army was organized at Rolla, Missouri, of which post I was in command. My quartermaster was Captain Philip H. Sheridan, and my commissary, Captain M. P. Small. No one who knew or saw Sheridan then thought of the great position he was to occupy in our Army, but when he took hold of that Army and stripped it and fed it, three hundred miles away from rail or water communication, we all knew that his was a master-mind. When he came to me at Rolla, the first order he gave was to take away about three-quarters of our transportation. I think we had about two wagons to the company, and he brought us down to about four to a regiment. You can all appreciate the rebellion I had on my hands when I undertook to enforce his order. I know he stood by and watched to see what I was going to do. Every Regiment and Command entered a protest, and said some very unkind things of him, denouncing him as a regular officer who had no mercy upon a volunteer; but I had then had experience enough to appreciate our necessities, and started in by stripping my own Regiment, and then enforcing the orders upon the others. We were not long on that march before they appreciated the foresight of Sheridan. He had great energy and great resources. He had to run all the mills along our line of march; he had to forage in every direction, and the punishment that he gave to some of the people to make them tell where their horses, forage and sweet potatoes were hidden would astonish those of our people who have been so horrified at the mild persuasions used for similar purposes in the Philippines.

To show you how little we knew of war on our first march, in January, 1862, from Rolla to Springfield, Missouri, all the reports we had obtained were that Price and his Army were in Springfield. The troops of our Army were divided into two commands, those under Siegel, composed of two Divisions, commanded by Osterhaus and Asboth, mostly Germans, and two Divisions of Americans commanded by Colonel Jeff C. Davis and Colonel E. A. Carr. I commanded a Brigade on the extreme left in Carr's Division, and, in accordance with instructions, put out a company in front of me as skirmishers. It was dark, and impossible for us to see much, and the first thing I knew I had lost my skirmishers, and was in great distress until about daylight in the morning, when, while Siegel's guns and our own were booming away at Springfield, my company came back mounted on Confederate horses and mules--old hacks that the enemy had left behind them--and brought us news that there was no enemy in Springfield, and had not been for two or three days.

As we marched along towards Pea Ridge through the country, Price's Army faced us with a rear guard only, his main body keeping a long distance ahead of us. At every stream they would halt our advance, and move out a couple of pieces of their artillery, and put out a strong skirmish-line, which would force our Army into line, thinking we were going to have a battle. My Brigade led the advance most of the time on that march, and as soon as they would line up the officers would have the boys strip. They would throw down their chickens, sweet potatoes, and everything they had gathered, and by the time they had gone forward, and the enemy had run, the Thirty-sixth Illinois, or some other Regiment, would come up and gobble what they had left. About the third time we lined up I discovered that every boy was hanging on to his chickens, sweet potatoes, and provender, and when I gave orders to the Colonels to have them throw them aside, the boys made answer: "No you don't, Colonel! You can't fool us any more; we have fed those Thirty-sixth Illinois fellows as long as we propose to."

Afterwards Fort McPherson, in the Indian Campaign, 1865. The fort was one hundred miles west of Fort Kearney, and was originally occupied as a trading post by Sylvanus Dodge, father of General Dodge.]

At Pea Ridge we were surrounded by Van Dorn, who placed Price's two Divisions in our rear, and he himself on our right flank with McCullough and McIntosh's Divisions. The great Pea Ridge divided his Army, so it was impossible for one part to support the other. His Army was twice as large as that of Curtis, and the fact that it was divided enabled Curtis to whip his Army in detail, so that Van Dorn's Army was virtually whipped before Curtis got his entire force into the field, Siegel only coming into battle after Van Dorn's Arkansas force had left for the South, Jeff C. Davis's Division having killed its two Division commanders, and Van Dorn had given Price orders to get out the best way he could, which forced him to retreat to the east towards White River.

After the Pea Ridge campaign the Battle of Prairie Grove was fought, under the command of General F. C. Herring, who was Lieutenant-Colonel of the Ninth Iowa Infantry in the Battle of Pea Ridge. As it was not in my command I have no knowledge of the detail of it; but from the reports it evidently was a sharp fight.

In the spring of 1865 Jeff C. Thompson and his command surrendered to me on the Arkansas line. His command consisted of six thousand men, but he found he could not gather them, and claimed that not half of his command was present. When I asked him how it was possible to get them all together, he suggested that I should send them rations. I therefore loaded two steamers from St. Louis, and sent them around by the White River, and Thompson issued his celebrated order bringing the men all in, and there was gathered about twice the number he had present when he surrendered to my forces. When asked for his transportation he said that he would show it to me, and out of the rivers and bayous he run down about one hundred canoes and flats, as the transportation he had to move his army with. It was at this time that he made that celebrated speech. When his soldiers came in without bringing their guns, as he had instructed them to do, bringing along old shot-guns and muskets that were of no use, he said if they were not satisfied with the generosity of this Government they should emigrate to Mexico, and he denounced more than half of them as being soldiers whom he had never seen, stating that they had stayed in the brush and along the river-banks in Arkansas until the moss had grown upon their heads and backs. From this speech of his came the celebrated saying of "moss-backs."

A part of my Corps fought under that gallant General, A. J. Smith, in the Banks campaign up the Red River, and there is no doubt but that his generalship and the fighting of the two Divisions of the Sixteenth Corps saved that Army from a great defeat. The commander of one of his Divisions, General T. E. G. Ransom, was a school-mate of mine, and afterwards came to me in the Atlanta campaign and commanded a Division under me in the Sixteenth Corps.

When I look at the history of all of the operations west of the Mississippi River, and see their results, it is a great gratification to me to know that all the campaigns, except possibly the one of Banks, were victories for our side.

When I returned to the command of the Department of the Missouri, in November, 1864, I found all the Indian tribes on the plains at war, occupying all the lines of communication through to the Pacific, and there was a great demand from the people upon the Government that those lines should be opened. General Grant sent a dispatch, asking if a campaign upon the plains could be made in the winter. Having spent eight or ten years of my life upon the plains before the war, I answered that it could, if the troops were properly fed and clothed. His answer to that was to place all the plains and Indian tribes within my command, instructing me to make an immediate campaign against them, and I had, therefore, to move the troops that were at Leavenworth, Fort Riley, and other points, onto the plains in mid-winter, and I think it was the Eleventh Kansas that had thirteen men frozen to death on the march to Fort Kearney. Those troops on that winter march up and down those stage- and telegraph-lines, in forty days opened them up, repaired the telegraph, and had the stages running. Then came the longer campaign of the next summer and next fall, where General Cole's command suffered so much, and also where General Conner fought the Battle of Tongue River. I remember of the Indians capturing a company of Michigan troops that were guarding a train that was going to Fort Halleck, loaded with rations and bacon. They tied some of the soldiers to the wheels of the wagons, piled the bacon around the wagons, and burned them up. A band of this party of Indians was captured by a battalion of Pawnees, who were far north of them and got on their trail and surrounded the band that had committed these atrocities. The chief of them, an old man, came forward and spoke to Major North, who commanded the Pawnees, and holding his hand up to his mouth he said that he was full of white men up to here, and was ready to die. The Indians virtually cleaned out the white people along the stage-lines they captured. I took from them a great many of their prisoners in the fall of 1865, when they came into Laramie to make peace, and the stories of the suffering of the women were such that it would be impossible to relate them.

In connection with this campaign on the plains, it is a singular fact that nearly three thousand Confederates took part. When I took command at St. Louis I found the prisons full of Confederate prisoners. The war was then virtually at its end, and they were very anxious to be relieved from prison life, and as we needed forces on the plains, I obtained authority from the War Department to organize what was known as the United States Volunteers, and filled the regiments with these Confederate soldiers, placing over them as officers, men and officers selected from our own command, and thus organized a very effective force, which did excellent service on the plains, three-quarters of which remained in that country after the war was over.

Place on the Battlefield of Atlanta, on the right of the battle line of the Sixteenth Army Corps, where Major-General James B. McPherson, commanding the Army of the Tennessee, was killed, July 22, 1864. The wheels are portions of Murray's Second U. S. Battery, which was captured by the Confederate skirmish-line while passing from the Seventeenth to the Sixteenth Corps.]

A TALK TO OLD COMRADES

ADDRESS TO SIXTEENTH ARMY CORPS
DELIVERED AT THE NATIONAL ENCAMPMENT, G. A. R.
WASHINGTON, D. C., OCTOBER, 1902
BY MAJOR-GENERAL GRENVILLE M. DODGE

_Comrades of the Sixteenth Army Corps_:

The Sixteenth Army Corps was organized December 18th, 1862, and formed into two wings. General A. J. Smith commanded the right wing, and General G. M. Dodge the left wing of the Corps. The left wing was organized with the Corps, the right wing a year or more afterwards. The Corps, as a body, was never together, though it probably took part in more widely separated fields than any other Corps in the Army of the Tennessee. The right wing, under General Smith, was in the Vicksburg campaign, and after that it went to the Department of the Gulf, and was with General Banks in his movement up Red River, and saved that Army from defeat; of this there is no doubt. After that, it was sent after Forrest, and it was the only command that I know of that caught and whipped him. The left wing overtook General Forrest at Town Creek, in 1863, in its march to Decatur in the rear of Bragg's Army, but he did not stay long enough for us to get a good fight out of him.

From the campaign after Forrest, General Smith's command was sent to the Department of the Missouri to drive out Price. There I found them, in December, 1864, when I took command of that Department, in a deplorable condition,--without clothing, shoes, or camp equipage. Under an order from General Grant, I sent them to Nashville, with all the force in my department, some twenty thousand men all told, to help General Thomas, and I sent them everything they needed to clothe and equip them. You all remember how you were frozen in on the Mississippi, and had to take the cars. One of the pleasantest recollections of my life is that I received a letter from General Smith, thanking me for appreciating their condition, and having in Nashville when they arrived, everything they needed. He said that it was the first time they had been treated decently, and they were thankful they had fallen into the hands of some one who appreciated them.

At the Battle of Nashville it was General Smith, with the right wing of the Sixteenth Corps, and the troops of the Department of the Missouri, that turned the left flank of Hood's Army, and was practically in his rear when stopped; and I have heard many officers who were there say that if he had been let alone he would have captured or destroyed that wing of the Army. Thus ended the eventful career of the right wing, and its fortunes were cast with the Army of the Cumberland in its chase after Hood.

The left wing was organized from the troops I commanded in the District of Corinth, and had in it the old Second Division of the Army of the Tennessee that Grant organized at Cairo, that fought at Belmont, Henry and Donelson, Shiloh, and the two Corinths. It had on its banners, "First at Donelson." I took command right after the Battle of Corinth, where it had been censured by Rosecrans and praised by Grant for the part it took in the Battle of Corinth. General Grant held us at Corinth as a protection to his communications while the campaign against Vicksburg was going on. In a letter to me he said he had left us there to protect that flank, for he knew that if Bragg endeavored to break that line we would stay; so you see he still had faith in his old Division. From Corinth we marched with Sherman in his celebrated trip from Memphis to Chattanooga. We wintered on the line, and rebuilt the Nashville and Decatur Road, and in his Memoirs General Grant, after describing the condition of the Army, and the necessity for rebuilding the railway from Nashville to Decatur, speaks thus of the work of the Sixteenth Army Corps:

General Dodge had no tools to work with except those of the
pioneer--axes, picks, and spades. With these he was enabled to
intrench his men, and protect them against surprise from small parties
of the enemy, and, as he had no base of supplies until the road could
be completed back to Nashville, the first matter to consider, after
protecting his men, was the getting in of food and forage from the
surrounding country. He had his men and teams bring in all the grain
they could find, or all they needed, and all the cattle for beef, and
such other food as could be found. Millers were detailed from the
ranks to run the mills along the line of the army. Where they were not
near enough to the troops for protection they were taken down and
moved up to the line of the road. Blacksmith shops, with all the iron
and steel found in them, were used up in like manner. Blacksmiths
were detailed and set to work making the tools necessary in railroad
and bridge building. Axemen were at work getting out timber for
bridges, and cutting fuel for locomotives and cars. Thus every branch
of railroad building, making tools to work with, and supplying the
workmen with food, was all going on at once, and without the aid of a
mechanic or workman except what the command itself furnished. General
Dodge had the work assigned to him finished within forty days after
receiving his orders. The number of bridges to rebuild was 182, many
of them over deep and wide chasms. The length of road repaired was 102
miles.

I only quote a small part of what General Grant says in this connection, to show you that while the Sixteenth Corps had its share of fighting, and praise for it, still it was a Corps that Grant called upon in an emergency, and when he wanted great deeds done; and proves not only what they could turn their hands to when necessary, but is also a sample of what our great army was made of.

In the spring of 1864 we became a part of the great Army in the Atlanta campaign. When we arrived at Chattanooga, on the 5th of May, I called at General Sherman's headquarters. General McPherson, our Army Commander, was there. Sherman said to him: "You had better send Dodge to take Ship's Gap." "Why, General," replied McPherson, "that is thirty miles away, and Dodge's troops are not yet unloaded, and he has no transportation with him." Sherman said: "Let him try it, and have the transportation follow." We struck out, and that night at midnight Sprague's Brigade of the Fourth Division of the Sixteenth Corps had gained the Gap. The enemy appeared the next morning. This opened the way through Snake Creek Gap, planting us in the rear of Johnston's Army, and forcing him to abandon his impregnable position at Dalton.

Our battles in the Atlanta campaign were those of the Army of the Tennessee. The left wing received continual commendation until the great battle of the 22d, when it happened to be in the rear of our Army, and received and defeated the celebrated movement of Hood to our rear. Sprague's Brigade fought all day at Decatur, and saved our trains. In the battle of the 22d of July we had only five thousand men in line, but met and repulsed three Divisions of Hardee's Corps, and McPherson, who stood on our right and witnessed the fight, watching the charge of Fuller and Mersey, and the breaking of two of the enemy's columns, spoke of us in the highest terms, and five minutes later was dead. Our Army, who knew and loved him, never could reconcile ourselves to his great loss.

The Battle of Atlanta was one of the few battles of the war where the attack on the Sixteenth Army Corps caught it on the march in the rear of the Army, without intrenchments or protection of any kind, both sides fighting in the open.

In his address describing the battle of the 22d of July, General Strong, of General McPherson's staff, says:

General McPherson and myself, accompanied only by our orderlies, rode
out and took position on the right of Dodge's line, and witnessed the
desperate assaults of Hood's army. General McPherson's admiration for
the steadiness and bravery of the Sixteenth Corps was unbounded. Had
the Sixteenth Corps given way the rebel army would have been in the
rear of the Seventeenth and Fifteenth Corps, and would have swept like
an avalanche over our supply-trains, and the position of the Army of
the Tennessee would have been very critical.

General Frank P. Blair pays this tribute to the fighting of the Sixteenth Army Corps, in his official report of the Battle of Atlanta:

I started to go back to my command, and witnessed the fearful assault
made on the Sixteenth Army Corps, and its prompt and gallant repulse
by that command. It was a most fortunate circumstance for the whole
army that the Sixteenth Army Corps occupied the position I have
attempted to describe at the moment of attack; and, although it does
not belong to me to report upon the bearing and conduct of the
officers and men of that Corps, still I cannot withhold my expression
of admiration for the manner in which this command met and repulsed
the repeated and persistent attacks of the enemy. The attack upon our
flank and rear was made by the whole of Hardee's corps.

Under General Howard, a part of the left wing took part in the battle of the 28th of July. On August 19th I was given a Confederate leave, when that _beau-ideal_ of a soldier, my old schoolmate and comrade, General T. E. G. Ransom, took command of the Corps. The right wing knew him, for he was with you in the Red River campaign. He died on a stretcher in command of the Corps in the chase after Hood. The old Second Division had its innings with General Corse, at Altoona, where the fighting has been immortalized in verse and song. My fortunes took me away to the command of the Army and Department of the Missouri, and the two Divisions of the left wing were merged one into the Fifteenth and the other into the Seventeenth Corps, and, so far as the campaigns were concerned, the Corps fought in two units, the right and left wings, and each was a Corps command.

The grave of that remarkable soldier, General A. J. Smith, whose distinguished services were so often recognized by Generals Grant and Sherman, has not a stone to designate it. The Society of the Army of the Tennessee is aiding in raising the funds to commemorate his memory and deeds by erecting a monument in his home in St. Louis.

The Sixteenth Army Corps had great opportunities in the campaigns it took part in, and never failed to make the most of them. They went cheerfully to any work assigned to them. They have left in the war records a history that they may well be proud of, and every work they have undertaken has received the strong commendation of their superior officers.

GENERAL GRANT

REMARKS AT ARMY OF POTOMAC REUNION
NIAGARA FALLS, N. Y.

When you consider that it is now thirty-three years after the war, that the Government has published every report, letter and order that was of any moment, you will agree with me that it is difficult to interest an Army audience in talking about another Army, and I shall not detain you long on that subject. There are, however, some incidents of General Grant's first visit to your Army, his return to ours, and the planning of the grand campaign that was to end the war, that may interest you.

In December, 1863, after the Battle of Chattanooga, the Army of the Tennessee camped along the railway from Columbia, Tenn., to Decatur and Huntsville, Ala. After the Battle of Chattanooga General Grant returned to Nashville and called there to meet him several Corps Commanders of the Army of the Tennessee, and General Sheridan of the Army of the Cumberland. If I remember rightly, there were present Generals Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Granger, Logan, Rawlins, and myself. All of us of the Army of the Tennessee were a hard-looking crowd. None of us had seen Nashville or any base of supplies since we had marched from the Mississippi River to Chattanooga, and we had been hard at work building railways and foraging. We arrived in Nashville late in the afternoon, and General Sherman took us to General Grant's headquarters. General Grant suggested that we should call upon the Military Governor of Tennessee, Andrew Johnson, and pay our respects to him. We, of course, followed General Grant, and were introduced to Governor Johnson. I remember that our uniforms were greatly worn, one or two of us wearing blouses with Army overcoats, and he looked at us with a very quizzical eye, until General Grant said to excuse us that he had not given us time since we reached the city to change our suits; but Grant knew we had no others. Governor Johnson was then a very radical man, and was very emphatic in informing us that while he was Military Governor of Tennessee no rebel would receive much consideration from him, and brought his fist down on a piano in the room with such force that the sound from it startled us all, and we left there with the idea that rebels in Tennessee had better get out; but we soon found that his words were much stronger than his acts, for I hardly ever got my hands on rebel stock or supplies that I did not find Johnson trying to pull them off.

After our visit, General Sherman suggested that we should all go to the theater that evening, and under his lead we went to the principal opera house to hear the play of Hamlet. We were all strangers in Nashville; even General Grant was not well known. We paid our way in and found the theater crowded with soldiers going to and returning from veteran furloughs. General Sherman, who you all know was a great lover of the theater, sat alongside of me and soon commenced criticising the play, earnestly protesting that it was being murdered. I had to check him several times and tell him unless he kept quiet the soldiers in the audience would recognize him and there would be a scene. We had entered late, and there soon came on the scene where Hamlet soliloquizes over the skull of Yorick. The audience was perfectly still, endeavoring to comprehend the actor's words, when a soldier far back in the audience rose up and in a clear voice called out, as the actor held up the skull, "Say, pard, what is it, Yank or Reb?" The house appreciated the point and was instantly in an uproar, and General Grant said we had better leave, so we went quietly out, no one discovering Grant's or Sherman's presence. Sherman immediately suggested that we should find an oyster-house and get something to eat, and General Rawlins was put forward as guide and spokesman. He led us to a very inviting place. We went in and found there was but one large table in the place. There was one man sitting at it, and Rawlins, in his modest way, without informing the man who his party was, asked him if he would change to a smaller table and let us have that one. The man said the table was good enough for him and kept on eating, and Rawlins backed out into the street again. Sherman said if we depended on Rawlins we would get nothing to eat, and said he would see what could be done. He hailed a man who pointed out another saloon kept by a woman, and to this Sherman took us, and she served us what we then considered a very nice oyster stew. As we sat around the table, we talked more than we ate, and by the time we had half finished our supper the woman came in and asked for the pay and said we must leave, as under the military rules her house must close at 12 midnight and it was then a few minutes after that hour; so out we got and took our way to Grant's headquarters, where we bunked down the best we could during the night. Some of the staff heard of our evening's adventure and gave the news to the press, and the next morning before breakfast all the parties were present to apologize to Grant that they did not recognize him, as we were out of our own jurisdiction and in that of the Army of the Cumberland; but Grant in his modest way satisfied them that he had no complaint. However, there poured in on him for all of us complimentary tickets and invitations to almost everything in Nashville.

After breakfast we all assembled in a large room at headquarters to hear what General Grant had to say to us. He took up with us the plan for a winter campaign. He proposed himself to take about 30,000 of the troops concentrated at Chattanooga and transport them by the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans, and there take with him the troops of General Canby and go thence to Mobile and attack that place. General Sherman was to go to Memphis, gather up all the forces along the Mississippi River, including the troops at Vicksburg and Natchez, together with the Seventeenth Corps, and march from Vicksburg to Meridian and thence join Grant at Mobile. I was to take the Sixteenth Corps, which was then located on the line of the Nashville and Decatur road, together with about 10,000 cavalry that General William Sooy Smith had concentrated near Nashville, and sweep down through Alabama, Northern Mississippi, and Western Tennessee, attacking any forces of the enemy that might be met, and destroying all the railroads and provisions that had been stored in that country, this with a view of making it difficult for any of the confederate armies to again occupy the territory, so as to enable Sherman and Grant, when the spring and summer campaign came on, to utilize all the Union troops that had been occupying that country. After the plans were all made and all the arrangements agreed upon, General Grant reported them to Washington, but President Lincoln objected because he was afraid, if we took so many troops from Chattanooga, that Longstreet, who was occupying Eastern Tennessee with his Army, would return to Chattanooga or Middle Tennessee and undo all we had accomplished in the Battle of Chattanooga. Grant had no fear of this, but he made up his mind to go immediately to East Tennessee and take the forces there under General Foster, attack and defeat Longstreet, and then come back and carry out his plans. He found after reaching Knoxville that General Foster's forces could not be used, so he abandoned the campaign, only sending Sherman to Vicksburg, who marched out to Meridian and returned, while the 7,000 cavalry under General William Sooy Smith, who was to join Sherman overland, moved south, fighting and driving the enemy until he reached West Point, where he met a superior force of the enemy and returned to Memphis.