BRAGG'S RETREAT SOUTHWARD.

551

a Jan., 1863.

through Murfreesboro' in the direction of Chattanooga. He had telegraphed cheerily to Richmond on the first," saying in conclusion, "God has granted us a happy New Year." On the 5th he telegraphed from Tullahoma, saying: "Unable to dislodge the enemy from his intrenchments, and hearing of re-enforcements to him, I withdrew from his front. night before last. He has not followed. My cavalry are close on his front."

Bragg's retreat was not known to Rosecrans until daylight, when he had too much the start to warrant a pursuit by the inferior cavalry force of the Nationals. He had fled so precipitately that he left about two thousand of his sick and wounded, with attendant surgeons, in his hospitals. The next day was Sunday, and all remained

quiet. Early on Monday morning Thomas advanced into Murfreesboro', and drove the Confederate rear-guard of cavalry six or seven miles toward Manchester. Two divisions of the army followed and occupied the town that day, and Rosecrans made his head-quarters in the village, at the house of E. A. Keeble, a member of the Confederate "Congress."

While the movements of Rosecrans and Bragg were tending to the great battle just recorded, the superior cavalry forces of the latter were busy in the rear of the former, as we have observed, in endeavors to destroy his communications and his trains. Forrest had been detached, with three thousand five hundred cavalry, to operate in West Tennessee upon the communications between Grant and Rosecrans, and between both and Louisville; and for a fortnight before the battle of Murfreesboro' he had been raiding through that region, much of the time with impunity, destroying railway tracks and bridges, attacking small National forces, and threatening and capturing posts. He crossed the Tennessee at Clifton, in the upper part of Wayne County, on the 13th of December, and, moving rapidly toward Jackson, seriously menaced that post. Sweeping northward, destroying tracks and bridges, he captured Humbolt, Trenton, and Union City, and menaced Columbus, the head-quarters of General Sullivan.

On his return he

b

Dec. 20,

1862.

At Trenton Forrest captured and paroled seven hundred troops, under Colonel Jacob Fry, making the number of his paroled prisoners since he crossed the river about one thousand. was struck at Parker's Cross Roads, between Huntington and Lexington, first by a force of sixteen hundred men, under Colonel C. L. Dunham, and then by General Sullivan, who came suddenly e Dec. 81. upon the raiders with two fresh brigades under General Haynie'

2

and Colonel Fuller, just as Dunham's train was captured, his little band'

1 One Hundred and Sixth and One Hundred and Nineteenth Illinois, Thirty-ninth Iowa, and Iowa Union Brigade of 200 men. In all, a little more than 1,200 men.

2 Twenty-seventh, Thirty-ninth, and Sixty-third Ohio.

9 Fiftieth Indiana, Thirty-ninth Iowa, One Hundred and Twenty-second Illinois, and Seventh Tennessee.

552

IMPORTANT CAVALRY RAIDS.

surrounded, and a second demand for a surrender had been made by Forrest and refused. Sullivan made a fierce onslaught on Forrest, whose troops were utterly routed, with a loss of fifty killed, one hundred and fifty wounded, and four hundred prisoners, including the latter. The Union loss was two hundred and twenty, of whom twenty-three were killed, one hundred and thirty-nine wounded, and fifty-eight missing. Forrest himself came very near being captured. His Adjutant (Strange) was made prisoner. Forrest fled eastward, recrossed the Tennessee at Clifton, and made his way to Bragg's army, below Murfreesboro'.

Morgan, the guerrilla, was raiding upon Rosecrans's left and rear, while Forrest was on his right. He suddenly appeared in the heart of Kentucky, where he was well known and feared by all parties. He dashed up toward Louisville along the line of the railway, and after skirmishing at Nolensville

1862.

and other places, he suddenly appeared before Elizabethtown,“ Dec. 27, then garrisoned by five hundred men of the Ninety-first Illinois, under Lieutenant-Colonel Smith. They were too few to combat successfully Morgan's three thousand. These surrounded the town, and,

Dec. 80.

without warning to the inhabitants, fired over a hundred shot Dec. 28. and shell into it. Smith had no artillery, and was compelled to surrender, when Morgan's men, as usual, commenced destroying property, stealing horses, and plundering the prisoners. They even robbed the sick soldiers in the hospital of blankets, provisions, and medicines.' After destroying the railway for several miles, Morgan made a raid to Bardstown, where he saw danger, and turning abruptly southward, he made his way into Tennessee by way of Springfield and Campbellsville. A counter-raid was made at about this time, by a National force under Brigadier-General S. P. Carter, the object being the destruction of important railway bridges on the East Tennessee and Virginia railway, which connected Bragg's army with the Confederate forces in Virginia. Carter started from Winchester, in Kentucky, on the 20th of December, and crossed the mountains to Blountsville, in East Tennessee, where he captured one hundred and fifty North Carolinians, under Major McDowell, with seven hundred small arms, and a considerable amount of stores. He destroyed the great bridge, seven hundred and twenty feet long, that spanned the Holston there. He then pushed on toward Jonesboro', and destroyed a railway bridge over the Watauga, at Clinch's Station, where, in a skirmish, he captured seventy-five men. He menaced Bristol, but went no farther east at that time. Then he recrossed the mountains and returned to Winchester, after a ride of seven hundred miles, having lost but twenty men, most of them made prisoners, and inflicted a loss on the Confederates of five hundred men and much property.

The writer visited the battle-ground of Murfreesboro' early in May, 1866. He went down from Nashville by railway, on the morning of the d May, 1866. 9th, with Messrs. Dreer and Greble, and soon after their arrival they called at the house of the Post Chaplain, the Reverend Mr. Earnshaw, of the Methodist denomination, whom the writer had met in Washington City a few months before. He was actively engaged in the work of estab

1 See Morgan and his Captors, by Rev. F. Senour, page 85.

A VISIT TO MURFREESBORO' BATTLE-GROUND.

553

lishing a National Cernetery on the Murfreesboro' battle-ground, and collecting therein the remains of the slain Union soldiers in that vicinity. He would be absent on that duty until noon, so we went to the quarters of Captain Whitman, the energetic quartermaster, then absent on duty, under the direction of General Thomas, in visiting the battle-fields of the West, and looking up the graves of Union soldiers, preparatory to their removal to National cemeteries at different places. His son, an earnest, patriotic young Phan, kindly furnished us with an ambulance and horses, and accompanied us to places of interest around and within Murfreesboro'. We were hospitably entertained at dinner by his mother and sister, after which we were joined by Chaplain Earnshaw, and all rode out on the Nashville pike to the battle-field, passing on the way the heavy earth-works cast up in the vicinity of the village by the National troops. After crossing Stone's River we saw marks of the battle everywhere upon trees that had survived the storm. Especially prominent were these evidences around the monument on the spot where Hazen's brigade fought, and in the cedar woods few trees had escaped being wounded. The few surviving trees near the monument were terribly scarred, and one, seen in the picture on page 546, beyond the wall, had its top cut off by a passing shell.

The National Cemetery at Murfreesboro' is on the battle-ground between the railway and the Nashville pike. It was partly inclosed when we were there by a fine cut-stone wall, of material from limestone quarries near by. It is at nearly the center of the field of conflict, and covers the slope, on the crest of which Loomis's battery was planted during a part of the struggle there, supported by the Eighth Wisconsin. The cemetery includes sixteen acres of ground, well laid out, with a large square in the center, on which it is designed to rear a monument. Mr. Earnshaw was indefatigable in his labors in the holy work of collecting there, in consecrated ground, the remains of the defenders of their country, and erecting a suitable monument to their memory. Already he had gathered there the remains of six thousand of the patriots who died that the Republic might live.

Having completed our explorations and sketches during the day, we supped with Chaplain Earnshaw and his interesting family, and left for Chattanooga with the next morning's train. To that earnest patriot and zealous Christian minister, and to the equally earnest and patriotic Captain Whitman, the writer is indebted for many kind attentions and much valuable information, while at Murfreesboro' and since.

554

SLAVERY CONSIDERED IN CONGRESS.

CHAPTER XXI.

SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION.-AFFAIRS IN THE SOUTHWEST.

HE Army of the Cumberland was compelled by absolute necessity to remain at Murfreesboro' until late in 1863. That necessity was found in the fact that its supplies had to be chiefly drawn from Louisville, over a single line of railway, passing through a country a greater portion of whose inhabitants were hostile to the Government. This line had to be protected at many points by heavy guards, for Bragg's cavalry force continued to be far superior to that of Rosecrans, and menaced his communications most seriously. But during that time the Army of the Cumberland was not wholly idle. From it went out important expeditions in various directions, which we shall consider hereafter.

We have now taken note of the most important military operations of the war to the close of 1862, excepting some along the Atlantic coast after the capture of Fort Pulaski, the land and naval expedition down the coasts. of Georgia and Florida, in the spring of 1862, and the departure of Burnside. from North Carolina in July following, to join the Army of the Potomac.' The immediately succeeding events along that coast were so intimately connected with the long siege of Charleston, that it seems proper to consider them as a part of that memorable event.

Let us now take a brief view of civil affairs having connection with military events, and observe what the Confederate armed vessels were doing in the mean time.

The second session of the Thirty-seventh Congress commenced on the 2d of December, 1861. It was a most important period in the history of the country. A civil war of unparalleled magnitude and energy was raging in nearly every slave-labor State of the Republic, waged on the part of the insurgents for the destruction of the old Union, that the slave system might be extended and perpetuated; and on the part of the Government for the preservation of the life of the Republic and the maintenance of its constitutional powers. The people and the lawgivers had been much instructed by current events during the few months since the adjournment of Congress, and when that body now met both were satisfied that, in order to save the Republic, Slavery, the great corrupter of private and public morals, and the fuel of the fiery furnace in which the nation was then suffering, must be destroyed. Therefore much of the legislation of the

a Aug., 1861.

1 See chapter XII.

CONFISCATION AND EMANCIPATION PROPOSED.

555 session then commenced was upon the subject of that terrible evil, for it was resolved to bring all the powers of the Government to bear upon it, positively and negatively: positively, in the form of actual emancipation, under certain conditions and certain forms, such as confiscation; and negatively, by withholding all restraints upon the slave. Introductory to this legislation was a notice of Senator Trumbull, of Illinois, given as soon as Congress was organized, that he should ask leave to introduce "a bill for the confiscation of the property of rebels, and giving freedom to persons they hold in slavery." Such bill was accordingly introduced on the 5th of December, when the conspirators and the opposition immediately sounded the alarumbell of" unconstitutionality," so often heard during the struggle, and warned the people of the designs of the Government party to destroy their liberties by revolution and despotism. The enlightened people, perfectly comprehending the alarmists, calmly responded by their acts, "We will trust them.” They agreed with Madison, one of the founders of the Republic, and called "the Father of the Constitution," that in a time of public danger such as then existed, the power conferred upon the National Legislature by the grant of the Constitution for the common defense had no limitation upon it, express or implied, save the public necessity. They remembered his wise words: "It is in vain to oppose constitutional barriers to the impulse of selfpreservation it is worse than vain," and acted accordingly.

For a long time the public mind had been much excited by the common practice of many of the commanding officers of the army of capturing and returning fugitive slaves to their masters. The bondsmen generally had the idea that the Union army was to be their liberator, and with that faith they flocked to it, when it was in camp and on its marches,' and it seemed specially cruel to deny them the kindness of hospitality. But that denial was a rule, and so early as the 9th of July, at the extraordinary session of Congress, Mr. Lovejoy, of Illinois, had called the attention of the House of Representatives to the subject, in a resolution which was passed by a vote of ninetythree yeas against fifty-five nays, that it was "no part of the duty of soldiers of the United States to capture and return fugitive slaves." On the 4th of December following he introduced a bill, making it a penal offense for any officer or private of the army or navy to capture or return, or aid in the capture or return, of fugitive slaves. On the same day, Mr. Wilson of Massachusetts gave notice in the Senate of his intention to introduce a bill for a similar purpose.*

1 That faith has been alluded to on page 124, and illustrated in note 1, page 125. It was almost universal, and had been engendered unwittingly by the slave-holders themselves. As a rule, there was very little attention paid to the presence of a slave during conversation, it seeming to be the practical idea that they understood but little more than a horse or a dog. When the Republican party was formed, in 1856, the slave-holders everywhere, when they met, agreed that the election of Fremont to the Presidency might lead to the abolition of slavery. This was said at the tables, in the presence of waiting-servants. These repeated it to those of the kitchen, and they, in turn, to those of the plantations. It was also vehemently avowed at political gatherings, where the colored people were generally numerous. Such opinion was more positively stated when Mr. Lincoln was elected, and the story, on the authority of the masters, that slavery was now to be abolished, went from lip to lip throughout the domain of the slave-labor States. The bondmen believed it, and they regarded Mr. Lincoln as their temporary Messiah, and the armies that came in his name as the power that was to make them free. Such was the visible origin of their wonderful faith. That faith was finally justified by events, and the consequence is, that the freedmen are universally loyal to the Government that asserts their manhood.

2 Perceiving the general lack of knowledge of the laws of war, particularly as touching the subject of the slaves of the country, Dr. Francis Lieber, the eminent publicist, suggested to General Halleck when he became General-in-Chief, in July, 1862, the propriety of issuing, in some form, a code or set of instructions on inter