FORTIFICATIONS AT BLAKELY.

511

Fort proper and its inclosing works, with thirty heavy guns and a large quantity of munitions of war. These guns were now turned upon Forts Huger and Tracy, at the mouth of the Appalachee or Blakely River, which held out gallantly until the night of April, 1865. the 11th," when the garrison spiked the twelve guns that armed the two forts, and fled.'

Prisoners

The key to Mobile was now in the hands of the Nationals. told the men of the navy where torpedoes were planted, when thirty-five of them were fished up, and the squadron moved in safety almost within shelling distance of the city. The army turned its face toward Blakely, on the east bank of the Appalachee, an insignificant village, at an important point in the operations against Mobile. Around this, on the arc of a circle, the Confederates had constructed a line of works, from a bluff on the river at the left, to high ground on the same stream at the right. These works comprised nine redoubts or lunettes, and were nearly three miles in extent. They were thoroughly built, and were armed with forty guns. The garrison consisted of the militia brigade of BATT TRACY General Thomas, known as the Alabama reserves, and a brigade of veterans from Missouri and Mississippi, of Hood's army, under General Cockerell. The two brigades numbered about three thousand men, commanded by General St. John Lidell.

Ever since Steele's arrival from Pensacola, his troops, and particularly Hawkins's negro division, had held Fort Blakely, as the works there were called, in a state of siege; and, for the first four days of the siege of Spanish Fort, it had been closely invested. It was now determined to carry it by assault, and then push on to Mobile. By the fall of Spanish Fort, the water communications of Blakely, with the city, had been cut off, and its reduction had been made sure. Yet it was capable of stout resistance. In front of its line of works was a deep and broad ditch; also abatis, chevaux-de-frise and terra-torpedoes; and its forty cannon swept every avenue of approach. In front of these Canby formed a strong line of battle, with additional cannon brought up from before Spanish Fort. Hawkins's dusky

1 The defense of Spanish Fort was skillfully and gallantly conducted, under General Gibson. From the beginning of the siege, the garrison had looked for assistance from General Forrest, then between Mobile and Montgomery, but Wilson was keeping him too thoroughly occupied in the interior to allow him to leave. The garrison displayed great courage and resolution. It made at least a dozen sorties during the siege. One of them, made on the 30th of March, was a brilliant success. At sunset the bombardment had ceased, when a party of the garrison, under Captain Watson, concealed by the smoke, rushed out over their works and captured Captain Stearns, of the Seventh Vermont, with twenty men, who were on the front skirmish line.

followers were on its right, the divisions of Generals J. C. Veatch and C. C. Andrews, of the Thirteenth Corps, formed the center, and Garrard's division of the Sixteenth Corps composed its left. Other divisions of the Sixteenth Corps were near, ready to afford aid to the battle-line, if necessary. It was Sunday, the 9th of April. Half-past five o'clock in the afternoon. was appointed as the time for the assault. At that hour dark clouds were rolling up from the west, and the low bellowing of distant thunder was heard. That "artillery of heaven was soon made inaudible to the armies, by the roar of cannon. Hawkins's division first skirmished heavily toward the works, when Garrard sent one-third of his command,' under a heavy fire of the Seventeenth Ohio Battery, and in the face of a storm of shells, to discover the safest avenues for an attack in force. These gained a point within fifty yards of the works, and found that every way was equally perilous, and all extremely so. But the work must be done. So Garrard gave the magnetic word, "Forward!" when his whole division bounded toward the enemy with a loud shout, meeting the galling fire of a score of guns. For more than half an hour they struggled with the obstacles in front of the works, sometimes recoiling as the dreadful storm of shells and canister-shot became more dreadful, yet continually making headway, inspirited by the voice of Garrard, who was in the thickest of the fight. At length, the obstructions were cleared, and while Harris's brigade was passing the ditch. and climbing the face of the works, those of Gilbert and Rinaker turned the right of the fort and entered it, capturing General Thomas and a thousand men. In an instant, a loud cheer arose, and several National flags were unfurled over the parapets.

While the struggle was going on upon the left, the whole line was participating in the assault. The center was feeling the storm from the works more seriously than the left. Dennison's brigade, of Veatch's division, and those of Spicely and Moore, of Andrews's division, were nobly braving the hail as they pushed onward in a charge, so soon as Garrard was fairly at work. Steadily they pressed forward, men falling at almost every step; and when Andrews's column was within forty yards of the works, it was terribly smitten by the fire of eight guns, that made lanes through its ranks. At the same time, the Eighty-third Ohio and Ninety-seventh Illinois, pushing forward as skirmishers, were just on the borders of a ditch, when more than a dozen torpedoes exploded under their feet, which threw them into confusion for a few minutes. This was followed by a tempest of grape and canister-shot, but the assault was pressed with vigor and steadiness, not only by the center, but by the right, where the brigades of Pile, Schofield, and Drew, of Hawkins's negro division, were at work, at twilight, fighting Mississippians, as their dusky brethren did at Overton's Hill, in the battle of Nashville. At length, when ordered to carry the works at all hazards, their fearful cry of " Remember Fort Pillow!" ran from rank to rank, and they dashed forward over the Confederate embankments, scattering every thing before them. But these black men were more humane than Forrest and his fellow-butchers at Fort Pillow, for, unlike those ferocious men, they did not murder their captives.

This division, composed of the brigades of General Gilbert and Colonels Rinaker and Harris, was the strongest in Canby's army. 2 See page 426.

EVACUATION OF MOBILE.

513

So ended, in triumph to the Nationals, THE BATTLE OF BLAKELY. By seven o'clock, or within the space of an hour and a half from the time the assault began, they had possession of all the works, with Generals Lidell, Cockerell, and Thomas, and other officers of high rank, and three thousand men, as prisoners of war. The spoils were nearly forty pieces of artillery, four thousand small-arms, sixteen battle-flags, and a vast quantity of ammunition. The Confederates lost, in killed and wounded, about five hundred men. The National loss was about one thousand.

" April 10, 1865.

April 11.

The Nationals were now in undisputed possession of the whole eastern shore of the bay. The army and navy spent all the next day" in careful reconnoitering, preparing for an advance on Mobile. Some of the gun-boats attempted to go up to Blakely, but were checked by a heavy fire from Forts Huger and Tracy. From these island batteries full two hundred shells were thrown at the navy during that and the next day, when, as we have seen, the garrisons of both spiked their guns, and fled in the shadows of night. Meanwhile the Thirteenth Army Corps had been taken across the bay, for an attack on Mobile, in connection with the gun-boats, which went from place to place, taking possession of abandoned batteries here and there. found no enemy to fight. On the day after the fall of Blakely, Maury ordered the evacuation of Mobile; and on the 11th, after sinking the powerful rams Huntsville and Tuscaloosa,' he fled up the Alabama River, with nine thousand men, on gun-boats and transports. General Veatch took

But the army

BATTERY GLADDEN.

possession of Batteries Gladden and McIntosh, in the harbor, and Battery Missouri, below the city; and on the evening of the 12th, after a summons to surrender, made by General Granger and Rear-Admiral Thatcher, the authorities formally gave the place into their hands at Battery Missouri, below the town. On the following day Veatch's division entered the city, and the National flag was hoisted on the public buildings, thereby disgusting the rebellious inhabitants, who closed their stores, shut up their dwellings, and kept from the streets; and the publication of four of the newspapers was suspended. General Granger followed the army into the city, and General Canby and his staff entered soon afterward.' So Mobile was "repossessed" a little more

1 It is a curious fact that a very large proportion of the most powerful iron-clad vessels constructed by the Confederates, were destroyed by their own hands. Only a few days after the evacuation of Mobile the Confederate ram Webb, from the Red River, freighted with cotton, rosin, and other merchandise, went down the Mississippi, passing New Orleans on the 20th of April, so unexpectedly that she received but two shots as she went by, from batteries there, the vessels of war being yet in Mobile Bay. The Webb was pursued by gun-boats from above, and was hurrying toward the Gulf, when she encountered the corvette Richmond, coming up the river. The commander of the ram, seeing no chance for escape, ran her ashore and blew her up. He and the crew took refuge in the swamps, but nearly all of them were captured.

2 A very full, faithful, and well-written account of the capture of Mobile and its dependencies, may be found in a volume of nearly three hundred pages, by General C. C. Andrews, one of the most active of the officers of the West. It is entitled, History of the Campaign of Mobile, including the co-operative Operations of General Wilson's Cavalry, in Alabama. It is illustrated by maps and delineations of scenes.

VOL. III.-111

514

A CAVALRY EXPEDITION ORGANIZED.

than four years after the politicians of Alabama raised the standard of revolt, and the foolish city authorities sought to blot out the memory of the old Union, by changing the names of its streets. To accomplish that repossession, in the manner here recorded, cost the Government two thousand men and much treasure. Four gun-boats (two iron-clad and two "tin-clad," as the lighter armored vessels were called) and five other vessels were destroyed by torpedoes. During that campaign, of about three weeks, the army and navy captured about five thousand men, nearly four hundred cannon, and a vast amount of public property. The value of ammunition and commissary stores found in Mobile, alone, was estimated at $2,000,000. In that city Veatch found a thousand men, left behind, who became prisoners, and upon the works for its immediate defense were one hundred and fifty cannon.3

Let us now consider the operations of General Wilson, in the field, while Canby was effecting the reduction of Mobile.

• 1865.

After the close of Thomas's active campaign in Middle Tennessee, the cavalry of the Military Division of the Mississippi, numbering about twentytwo thousand men and horses, were encamped on the north side of the Tennessee River, at Gravelly Springs and Waterloo, in Lauderdale County, Alabama. These had been thoroughly disciplined, when, in March," they were prepared for an expedition into Alabama, having for its object co-operation with Canby in the reduction of Mobile, and the capture of important places, particularly Selma, on the Alabama River, where the Confederates had extensive iron founderies. The march of Cheatham toward the Carolinas, with a part of Hood's broken army, and the employment of the remainder at Mobile, made nearly the whole of Thomas's force in Tennessee, disposable, and Wilson left Chickasaw Landing, on the Tennessee River, on the 22d of March, with about thirteen thousand men, composing the divisions of Long, Upton and McCook. He had six batteries. His men were all mounted excepting fifteen hundred, who were detailed as an escort to the supply and baggage trains of two hundred and fifty wagons. There was also a light pontoon train of thirty boats, carried by fifty six-mule wagons. Each man was well provided on the basis of a

See page 175. volume I.

* During the siege of Spanish Fort and Blakely, General Lucas went out with all of his command excepting some Massachusetts mounted infantry, taking with him ten days' half-rations, and as much forage as the men could carry, for the purpose of occupying Claiborne, on the Alabama River, to prevent troops coming down to the relief of Mobile. He left on the 5th of April, and on the 7th he met a negro with dispatches from General Wilson to General Canby, carefully sewed up in the collar of his vest. Lucas furnished him with a guard and mule, and sent him on. From this courier he learned that a Confederate force was at Claiborne, and Lucas determined to capture it. On the way, the First Louisiana Cavalry encountered a mounted force at Mount Pleasant, charged and routed them, and in a pursuit of two miles, by Lucas in full force, he captured two battleflags, three commissioned officers, and sixty men, with a loss of only five men. Pushing on to Claiborne, be went into camp there, and thither his scouts brought prisoners nearly every day On the 18th, when he received an order from Canby to return to Blakely, he had one hundred and fifty captives.

3 Immediately after the surrender of the city, the navy was engaged in gathering up torpedoes in the channels, and blowing up and removing the obstructions in them. In this dangerous business three small vessels were destroyed by the explosion of torpedoes. On the 4th of May, Ebenezer Farrand, one of the traitors who placed the navy-yard near Pensacola in the hands of the Conspirators (see pages 168 and 169, volume I) in 1861, now in command of the few vessels belonging to the Confederates in the waters of Alabama, formally surrendered the whole, and the forces under his command, to Admiral Thatcher, at Sidney, on the terms which Grant had given to Lee a month before.

4 Knipe's division, we have seen, went with the Sixteenth Army Corps to New Orleans. Hatch's division was left at Eastport.

WILSON'S MARCH THROUGH ALABAMA.

515

sixty days' campaign, it being ordered that men and animals should subsist, as far as possible, on the country.'

To deceive the Confederates, and accommodate itself to the condition of the country, Wilson's command moved on diverging routes, the distances between the divisions expanding and contracting, according to circumstances. The general course was a little east of south, until they reached the waters of the Black Warrior River. Upton marched for Sanders's Ferry on the west fork of the Black Warrior, by way of Russellville and Mount Hope, to Jackson, in Walker County. Long went by devious ways to the same point, and McCook, taking the Tuscaloosa road as far as Eldridge, turned eastward to Jasper, from which point the whole force crossed the Black Warrior River. There, in the fertile region watered by the main affluents of the Tombigbee River, the columns simultaneously menaced Columbus, in Mississippi, and Tuscaloosa and Selma, in Alabama.

• March 27, 1865.

At that time General Forrest, in command of the Confederate cavalry, was on the Mobile and Ohio railway, west of Columbus, in Mississippi, and so rapid was Wilson's march through Alabama, that the watchful and expert enemy could not reach him until he was far down toward Selma. Forrest put his men in instant motion, to meet the danger. He sent Chalmers by way of Bridgeville toward Tuscaloosa. Hearing of this," Wilson put his forces in rapid motion, with ample supplies, for Montevallo, beyond the Cahawba River. Arriving at Elyton,' he directed McCook to send Croxton's brigade to Tuscaloosa for the March 30. purpose of burning the public property and destroying founderies and factories there. The adventures of that brigade, which did not rejoin the main body until the expedition had ended, we shall consider presently. Upton's division was impelled forward. The small Confederate force found at Elyton, was driven across the Cahawba to Montevallo, as sharply pursued as felled trees, which the fugitives left behind them, would allow. Upton passed the Cahawba with his whole division, pushed on to Montevallo, and in that region destroyed the large Red Mountain, Central, Bibb, and Columbiana Iron-works, the Cahawba Rolling-mills, and five important collieries. These were all in operation, and were a serious loss to the Confederates.

Wilson arrived at Montevallo on the afternoon of the 31st of March. Upton was just ready to move forward. Just then the Confederates made their appearance on the Selma road, driving in Upton's pickets. These consisted of the commands of Roddy and Crossland. After a sharp fight with Alexander's brigade, they were routed by a charge of the Fifth Iowa Cavalry, and driven in confusion toward Randolph. They attempted to make a stand at Six-mile Creek, south of Montevallo, but were again routed with a loss. of fifty men made prisoners. Upton bivouacked fourteen miles south of Montevallo that night, and early the next morning rode into Randolph unmolested. There he captured a courier, whose

c

© April 1.

15

1 Each man was provided with five days' light rations in haversacks, 24 pounds of grain, 100 rounds of ammunition, and one pair of extra shoes for his horse. The pack animals were loaded with five days' rations of hard bread, and ten of sugar, coffee, and salt; and the wagons with 45 days' rations of coffee, 20 of sugar, of salt. and S rounds of ammunition. Only enough hard bread was taken to last through the sterile regions of North Alabama, A greater portion of the men were furnished with the Spencer carbine.