END OF THOMAS'S CAMPAIGN.

429

the garrisons which General Granger had called to Stevenson,' to their former posts. He was joined by Granger at the latter place, and they reoccupied Decatur on the 27th, but too late to impede Hood's flight, for he had already crossed the Tennessee. But a cavalry force of six hundred men, under Colonel W. J. Palmer, was sent from Decatur in pursuit of Hood's train. Pressing back Roddy's cavalry near Leighton, Alabama, Palmer moved toward Columbus, Mississippi, and captured and destroyed Hood's pontoon train, ten miles from Russellville. Another force being reported in pursuit, under cover of darkness Palmer pushed for Moulton. Meeting the Confederates near Thorn Hill, he attacked and de- 1863. feated them, and arrived safely at Decatur on the 6th of January.

2

3

On the 30th of December, General Thomas announced to the army the termination of the campaign, and gave orders for the proper distribution of his troops in winter cantonments at Eastport, in Northern Mississippi, at Athens and Huntsville, in Alabama, and at Dalton, in Georgia. But General Grant and the War Department had decided that there should be no rest until the Rebellion should be crushed. Sherman had reached the sea, and was prepared for a march northward through the Carolinas into Virginia, and the siege of Petersburg and Richmond was to be prosecuted with vigor. Accordingly, orders were issued' for Thomas to send Wood with the Fourth Corps to Huntsville, and to concentrate the troops of Smith, Schofield and Wilson, at Eastport, to await a renewal of the winter campaign in Mississippi and Alabama. Hood's army, as an organization, had almost disappeared, when, on the 23d of January, he was "relieved," as he said, "at his own request," at Tupelo, in Mississippi.

Dec. 31,

1864.

• 1865.

4 Dec. 12, 1864.

It was during the active campaign in Middle Tennessee, just considered, that the stirring events in which Generals Gillem and Breckinridge were chief actors, occurred, as recorded on page 287. General Stoneman then took command in that region, and concentrated the forces of Gillem and Burbridge at Bean's Station. Thence he moved toward Bristol, when his advance struck a force under Basil Duke, one of Morgan's officers, opposite Kingsport, dispersed them, captured their train, and took eighty-four of them prisoners. Burbridge pushed on to Bristol and Abingdon, capturing both places, with nearly three hundred prisoners, and destroying five loaded railway trains, and large quantities of stores and munitions of war. At Abingdon, Gillem joined Burbridge, when Stoneman menaced the important salt-works at Saltville, in that vicinity.

• Dec. 15.

By this rapid advance into Virginia, Vaughan, in command of the Confederate frontier cavalry, had been flanked, but he moved on a parallel line to Marion, where Gillem fell upon and routed him, and chased him thirty miles into Wytheville. That place Gillem captured

1 See page 419.

f Dec. 16.

2 Thomas estimated his entire loss during the campaign, in all the operations under his command, from the 7th of September, 1864, to the 20th of January, 1865, at about 10.000 men, or less than one-half the loss of his adversary. During that time he had captured 11.857 men, officers and privates, besides 1,832 wh› had been exchanged, making a total of about 18,000. He had administered the oath of amnesty and submission to 2,207 deserters from the Confederate service, and had captured 72 serviceable guns and 3,079 small-arms.

See page 414.

430

1864.

VISIT TO THE NASHVILLE BATTLE-GROUND.

at dusk the same evening, with two hundred men, eight guns, and a valuable wagon-train. After destroying Wytheville, and stores there, and the railway for some distance, Gillem returned to Mount Airy, from which place Stoneman had sent out a brigade under Colonel Buckley, to destroy lead mines in that region, which that officer accomplished, after driving off Vaughan, who was there. Stoneman now started to destroy Dec. 17, the great salt-works already mentioned. On the way, Burbridge, in the advance, met and fought Breckinridge near Marion, nearly all one day. Gillem approached from another point to cut the foe off from the salt-works, when Breckinridge, taking counsel of prudence, withdrew and retired over the mountains into North Carolina. Saltville, where the works were situated, was thus abandoned to its fate, after being guarded with the greatest care. These important works were now utterly destroyed, while spoils, in the shape of cannon, ammunition, and railway rolling stock, fell into Stoneman's hands. The object of the expedition having been accomplished, General Burbridge returned to Kentucky, and General Stoneman, with Gillem's command, went back to Knoxville.

The writer visited Nashville, and the battle-field in its vicinity, at the beginning of May, 1866, after a voyage on the Cumberland to Fort Donelson and back, and he was placed under many obligations to General Thomas, and members of his staff, and especially to Major Willard, for kind attentions, and for facilities for obtaining all necessary topographical and

1864.

historical information concerning the battle of the 15th and 16th of December, of which a description, in outline, is given in this chapter.

General Thomas took the writer, in his light carriage drawn by a span of beautiful dappled gray horses, to various points of interest, the most important of which, for the author's purpose, was the lofty hill between the Hardin and Granny White turnpikes, on which the commanding general stood, with the whole field of operations in view, and directed the battle on the 15th. With a large topographical map in his hand,' he pointed out every important locality and explained every movement, making the text of his official report perfectly luminous. Around us lay, upon bare hills once crowned with groves and forest, and across desolated vales once beautiful with the richest products of cultivation, the long lines of intrenchments, with forts and redoubts, cast up by both parties in the strife, and scarcely altered in feature since the day of battle. With these, and the ruins of houses battered by missiles or laid in ashes by fire, in full view, and with the clear and vivid descriptions of General Thomas, the chief actor in the events of that day, which consecrated every hill and valley, ravine and streamlet within the range of vision, it required but a small effort of the imagination, then and there, to reproduce the battle in all its awful grandeur and hideousness.

General Thomas kindly offered his carriage and a driver for the writer's use in revisiting for further study, and for sketching important points connected with the battle. In this way, accompanied by his traveling companions (Messrs. Dreer and Greble), who joined him at Nashville on the day

1 See page 226, volume II.

* See reduced copy on page 427.

RUINS ON MONTGOMERY HILL.

431

after his visit to the field with General Thomas, the writer went to and sketched several places of interest. Among these was Fort Negley,' and the spacious mansion of Mrs. Ackling, the head-quarters of General Wood,' from whose gallery the young wife of that gallant officer looked out and saw

the dreadful storm of war in which her husband was conspicuous, when the attack was made upon Hood's salient on Montgomery Hill. It was just after sunset when that sketch was made. Then we rode to Montgomery Hill, passing up a lane among many evidences of the existence there of a once beautiful estate, then in utter ruin; and from the remains of Hood's strong intrenchments, north of the Montgomery mansion, the above sketch of its ruins was made, in the edge of the evening. They were partly inclosed in Hood's breast works, and one of his redoubts, and presented a most melancholy picture of the ravages of war. The high grounds seen in the distance, toward the right of the sketch, are portions of the range of the Harpeth hills, to which Hood was driven when expelled from Montgomery Hill

We spent a few days pleasantly and profitably in and around Nashville, the recipients of the kindest courtesies, and then went southward to visit Murfreesboro', and the extended theater of conflict between there and Chattanooga and Atlanta, already mentioned in other pages of this work.

1 See page 265, volume II.

2 See page 424.

432

CONFEDERATE NAVY DEPARTMENT.

CHAPTER XVI.

CAREER OF THE ANGLO-CONFEDERATE PIRATES.-CLOSING OF THE PORT OF MOBILEPOLITICAL AFFAIRS.

ET us now turn a moment, from the consideration of the struggle on the land, to that of some events of the war on the ocean, carried on by pirate ships, and also some important naval events near Mobile.

We have noticed the organization of a so-called "Navy Department" by the Conspirators, at Montgomery, early in 1861, the measures taken for providing a naval force, and the commissioning of pirates to prey upon the National property on the ocean.' Also the doings of some of these cruisers in the earlier part of the war, and the aid given to the Conspirators by British ship-builders, with the tacit consent of their Government, in constructing powerful sea-going pirate ships for the Confederate service. The latter, as we have observed, were fitted out by British hands, and their commanders bore commissions from the Confederate "Government" so-called.

These ships were provided with the best armament known to the British marine-Armstrong, Whitworth, Blakely, and other rifled cannon of heaviest

ARMSTRONG GUN,

weight-which were also liberally furnished to the Confederates for land service, from British arsenals by the swift blockade-runners. By men of the same nation, every other material for destructive use by the pirate ships, was supplied, even to

the most approved fire-balls for burning merchant vessels. These outrages

1 See pages 872 to 874, inclusive, volume I.

2 See pages 555 to 58, inclusive, volume I.

3 See pages 567 to 571, inclusive, volume II. See page 570, volume II. The Confederate Navy Department" was organized with S. R. Mallory, for merly a National Senator, at its heal, and he continued in office until the close of the war. His department according to "A Register of the Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the Navy of the Confederate States, to January 1, 1864," printed at Richmond, was composed as follows: S. R. Mallory, Secretary of the Navy, with s chief clerk, three inferior clerks, and tnessenger; an Office of Orders and Details; Office of Ordnance and lly drography; Office of Provisions and Clothing, and Office of Medicine and Surgery. The Register contains several hundred names of officers, including all ranks known in our navy. from admiral down. There was but one admiral (Franklin Buchanan), twelve captains, three provisional captains, and forty-one commanders. A large number of these were formerly in the National service.

So called from its inventor, Sir William Armstrong.

ANGLO-CONFEDERATE PIRATE SHIPS.

433

against a people with whom the British Government was at peace and entertaining the most amicable commercial relations, were for a long time. as we have observed,' practically countenanced by that Government, which failed to act upon the earnest remonstrances of the American minister in London.

FIRE-BALL.4

The most formidable of these piratical vessels fitted out in Great Britain and afloat in 1864, were the Alabama and Florida, already noticed, commanded respectively by Captains Semmes and Maffit.' The former was in command of the Sumter, whose career suddenly ended early in 1862.3 The latter, as we have observed, went out from Mobile in the Oreto, afterward named Florida, to play the pirate by plundering on the high seas, without authority. Four other vessels were added by British shipmasters in 1864, named, respectively, Georgia, Tallahassee, Olustee, and Chickamauga, whose ravages greatly swelled the sum total of damages already inflicted upon American commerce by Anglo-Confederate marauders." They sailed under British colors until a prize was secured, when they hoisted the Confederate flag. They were everywhere greeted with the greatest enthusiasm in British ports, and their officers were honored with receptions and dinners by British officials and British subjects; and wherever these corsairs appeared, whether in "proper person" on the water, or in discussions in the British Parliament, or among the ruling classes of Great Britain, they were ever the occasion for an exhibition of the practical hollowness of that neutrality proclaimed in good faith by the Queen at the beginning of the Rebellion.

The Florida hovered most of the time off the American coast, while the Alabama was seen in European and more distant waters. The former was closely watched by Government vessels, especially when the pirate was cruising among the West India Islands, but she managed to elude them.

1 See page 568, volume II.

6

4 This is a representation of a fire-ball taken from on board one of the Anglo-Confederate pirate ships. It was made of stout canvas, inclosed in netting, and filled with combustible material. It was egg-shaped, a little more than a foot in length, and at the larger end had a solid piece of wood, which was used for the same purpose as the sabot on projectiles. These fire-balls were thrown into vessels, as well as forts, from cannon. On board of the same vessel were found shells filled with a substance called Greek fire, terrible in its character, because inextinguishable. Also other shells, for hurling melted iron upon ships. All of these destructive materials were furnished to the pirate ships in Great Britain. They were seen and sketched by the author, at the Navy Yard in Washington City, with many other relics of the war, in 1866.

HOT METAL SHELL.

GREEK

FIRE SHELL

5 At the beginning of 1864 the pirates then on the ocean had captured 198 American merchant ships, whereof all but 17 were burnt. The value of their cargoes, in the aggregate, was estimated at $18,445,000. So dangerou became the navigation of the ocean for American vessels, that about 1,000 American ships were sold to foreigr merchants, chiefly British. Full two-thirds of the carrying trade between the United States and Europe was driven to British bottoms.

While cruising in that region in May, 1863, the Florida captured the brig Clarence, and fitted her up as a pirate ship, with a crew under Lieutenant C. W. Read, formerly of the National Navy. She went up the coast of the United States, capturing valuable prizes, and near Cape Henry she seized the bark Tucony. To this vessel Read transferred his men and armament, and spread destruction and consternation among merchant and fishing vessels, from the coast of Virginia to that of Maine. Swift cruisers were sent after the Tacony. When informed of this, Read transferred his crew and armament to the prize schooner Archer, and destroyed the Tacony. Then he went boldly to the entrance of the harbor of Portland, Maine, and at midnight sent two armed boats to seize the revenue cutter Cushing, lying there. It was done, when chase after the pirates was successfully made by two merchant steamers, hastily armed and manned for the purpose. The Cushing and Archer, with the pirates, were soon taken back to Portland, where the marauders were lodged in prison.

June 24, 1863.

VOL. III.-28