the summer heats, they pursued the enemy over an arid and desolate country, in the words of General Sherman, "in heat and dust for fifty miles, with little or no water, save in muddy creeks, in cisterns already exhausted, and in the surface ponds which the enemy in his retreat had tainted with dead cattle and hogs; crossed Black river by bridges of their own construction and then had to deal with an army which had, under a leader of great renown, been formed specially to raise the siege of Vicksburg, far superior in cavalry, and but little inferior in either infantry or artillery, and drove him fifty miles and left him in full retreat; destroyed those great arteries of travel in the State which alone could enable him to assemble troops and molest our possession of the Mississippi river; and so exhausted the land that no army can exist during this season without hauling in wagons all its supplies." Jackson, invested by the Union forces, was a second time abandoned by the enemy on the 16th of July, when Sherman entered and destroyed what was left of its military and railway resources. In this brief campaign his own losses in killed, wounded and prisoners was less than a thousand, while the enemy lost more than that in prisoners alone. Simultaneously with this movement upon Jackson, a naval and military expedition under Lieutenant-Commanding Walker and Major-General Herron was sent to rout the enemy and capture their transports at Yazoo City. A reconnoissance of the rebel batteries was made by the gunboats, when General Herron landed his force of five thousand men and a joint attack was made upon the works. The rebels soon fled, previously setting fire to "four of their finest steamers that ran on the Mississippi in times past." The army pursued and a number of captures were made. In this movement the Union gunboat Baron De Kalb ran foul of a torpedo and was sunk by the explosion. The possession of Vicksburg was now fully assured. One position only on the river was left to the enemy; but the fall of that was now certain. The next chapter relating the capture of Port Hudson will complete the narrative, illustrated by so many deeds of heroism, of the re-opening of the Mississippi. CHAPTER LXXXIX. GENERAL BANKS' DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF. SURRENDER OF PORT HUDSON, JULY 7, 1863 GENERAL BANKS after his period of service with the army in Virginia in the summer of 1862, was employed during the autumn in the northern cities in fitting out an expedition, the destination of which was carefully concealed, some thinking it was intended to co-operate with the army in Virginia by a landing on the Atlantic coast, while various indications pointed to Texas. His preparations for forwarding troops and supplies having been completed, he sailed from New York at the beginning of December in the transport steamer North Star, accompanied by his staff and the officers and men of Colonel Chickering's Forty-first Massachusetts regiment. An extra official, Brigadier-General A. J. Hamilton, with the appointment by the President of provisional or military governor of Texas, was of the party. A native of GEN. BANKS' PROCLAMATION. of Texas, acquired reputation as a lawyer and politician, and been sent as a representative to the second Congress of President Buchanan's administration. There he had advocated the cause of the Union, and subsequently on his return to Texas had maintained his patriotic course to the last, till he was compelled to flee from his State before the armed usurpation of its rebel population. Escaping through Mexico, he had reached the North in safety, and by his influence and public speeches had done much to enlighten the people on the true nature of the rebellion and strengthening the maintenance of the Union. He was sent on his present mission as a representative of the persons at the South true at heart to their country, and to facilitate their return to their old allegiance. Though Texas was long closed to him, as it turned out, he did good service in Louisiana. 171 Alabama, he had been long a resident had substantially to be maintained. His proclamation on assuming command was judicious and forcible, appealing to the interests rather than the fears of the people he came to govern. "The duty," said he, "with which I am charged requires me to assist in the restoration of the Government of the United States. It is my desire to secure to the people of every class all the privileges of possession and enjoyment which are consistent with public safety, or which it is possible for a beneficent and just Government to confer." Looking at the geographical, and hence the moral condition of the situation, he pronounced "the Valley of the Mississippi the chosen seat of population, product and power on this continent. In a few years twenty-five millions of people, unsurpassed in material resources and capacity for war, will swarm upon its fertile rivers. Those who assume to set conditions upon their exodus to the Gulf count upon a power not given to man. The country washed by the waters of the Ohio, the Missouri and the Mississippi can never be permanently severed. one generation basely barters away its rights, immortal honors will rest upon another that reclaims them. * * This country cannot be permanently divided. Ceaseless wars may drain its blood and treasure, domestic tyrants or foreign foes may grasp the sceptre of its power, but its destiny will remain unchanged. It will still be united. God has ordained it. What avails, then, the destruction of the best Government ever devised by man-the self-adjusting, selfcorrecting Constitution of the United States? People of the Southwest! Why not accept the conditions imposed by the imperious necessities of geographical configurations and commercial supremacy and re-establish your ancient prosperity and renown? Why not become the founder of States which, as the entrepots and depots of your own Central and Upper Valleys, may stand After a favorable voyage, General Banks arrived at New Orleans on the 14th of December, and on the 16th, in accordance with his instructions from Washington, relieved General Butler in command of the Department of the Gulf. The announcement was received with surprise by the country which had witnessed with satisfaction the success of General Butler's administration; nor was any censure intended by the Government in his removal. No reason was given for the proceedings; but it was supposed to be in some way connected with the foreign policy of the Government, General Butler having, as we have seen, in the discharge of his duties, incurred the hostility of the European consuls. It was also said that General Butler having cleared the way as a pioneer in repressing the first fury of the rebellion, a new ruler might profitably introduce some relaxation of his vigorous policy. Something, indeed, of this was attempted by General Banks, but it was found that the decided course of his predecessor If in the affluence of their resources with- it is to be preserved, war must cease, out superior, and in the privileges of the people, without a peer among the nations of the earth.” The answer to these questions might be deferred; but there could be but one reply, and that was the practical restoration of the Union. On the 24th of December General Banks again addressed the people of Louisiana in a proclamation, setting forth the conditions of the President's Emancipation Proclamation in special reference to the State. After enjoining patience and forbearance during the unsettled relations of the master and slave to be determined in the future he called attention to the Act of Congress forbidding the return of fugitives by officers of the army. "No encouragement," said he, will be given to laborers to desert their employers, but no authority exists to compel them to return." He suggested to planters the adoption of some plan by which an equitable proportion of the proceeds of the crops of the coming year be set apart and reserved for the support and compensation of labor. Of the future of the peculiar institution he said, in words of weighty import: "The war is not waged by the Government for the overthrow of Slavery. The President has declared, on the contrary, that it is to restore the Constitutional relations between the United States and each of the States' in which that relation is or may be suspended. The resolutions passed by Congress, before the war, with almost unanimous consent, recognized the rights of the States in this regard. Vermont has recently repealed the statutes supposed to be inconsistent therewith. Massachusetts had done so before. Slavery existed by consent and Constitutional guaranty; violence and war will inevitably bring it to an end. It is impossible that any military man, in the event of continued war, should counsel the preservation of slave property in the rebel States. If and the former Constitutional relations be again established. The first gun at Sumter proclaimed emancipation. The continuance of the contest there commenced will consummate that end, and the history of the age will leave no other permanent trace of the rebellion. Its leaders will have accomplished what other men could not have done. The boldest Abolitionist is a cipher when compared with the leaders of the rebellion. What mystery pervades the works of Providence! We submit to its decrees, but stand confounded at the awful manifestations of its wisdom and power! The great problem of the age, apparently environed with labyrinthic complications, is likely to be suddenly lifted out of human hands. We may control the incidents of the contest, but we cannot circumvent or defeat the end. It will be left us only to assuage the horrors of internecine conflict, and to procrastinate the processes of transition. Local and national interests are therefore alike dependent upon the suppression of the rebellion. No pecuniary sacrifice can be too great an equivalent for peace, but it should be permanent peace, and embrace all subjects of discontent. It is written on the blue arch above us; the distant voices of the future-the waves that beat our coast-the skeletons that sit at our tables and fill the vacant places of desolate and mourning firesides, all cry out that this war must not be repeated hereafter. Contest, in public as in social life, strengthens and consolidates brotherly affection. England, France, Austria, Italy-every land fertile enough to make a history, has had its desolating civil wars. It is a baseless nationality that has not tested its strength against domestic enemies. The success of local interests narrows the destiny of a people, and is followed by secession, poverty and degradation. A divided country and perpetual war make possession a delusion and life a calamity. MILITARY OPERATIONS. * 173 The triumph of national interests widens rison at Galveston, which, as has been the scope of human history, and is at- related in a previous chapter, was detended with peace, prosperity and feated by a prompt and daring movepower. It is out of such contests that ment of the rebel General Magruder, great nations are born. What hallowed and resulted in the capture of the troops inemories float around us! New Orleans which had been landed, and of the is a shrine as sacred as Bunker Hill! Harriet Lane, with the loss of the On the Aroostook and the Oregon the Westfield and several transport vessels names of Washington, Jackson and Tay- of the navy. The next military attempt lor are breathed with as deep a rever- in the Department was in the region of ence as on the James or the Mississippi. the Bayou Teche, west of the MissisLet us fulfil the conditions of this last sippi, where a band of armed rebels great trial, and become a nation-a were giving great annoyance by their grand nation-with sense enough to depredations, being assisted in their govern ourselves and strength enough spoliations by a gunboat named the to stand against the world united!" Cotton. To repress these disturbances, When the President's Emancipation General Weitzel, in command of several Proclamation was confirmed by him on Eastern and Western regiments at the first of January, portions of Louisi- Thibodeaux, crossed to Brashier city on ana were specially exempted from its the eleventh of January, embarked his provisions. This left the condition of infantry for the ascent of the Atchafalaya the negroes subject to the laws of Con- in quest of the enemy while the cavalry gress which had been passed and the and artillery proceeded by land. The exigencies of military rule in the De- Cotton took refuge in the Bayou Teche, partment. The latter of course forbade protected by obstructions in the river vagrancy and crime as sources of dis- and by a battery on shore. Lieutenantorder in the community. It was neces- Commander Buchanan brought up a sary in some way to adjust the relations fleet of gunboats to the attack, being of capital and negro labor. This was supported in his advance by the troops done by authorizing the Sequestration of General Weitzel on both sides of the Commission sitting in the State to estab- river. One of the gunboats was turned lish with the planters a proper system back by the explosion of a torpedo of remuneration for which the negroes under her when the gallant Buchanan should be required to render faithful pushing on in the Calhoun the vessel service. "This," said General Banks, was exposed to the fire from the riflemay not be the best, but it is now pits on the banks. One of his officers the only practical system. Wise men was wounded by his side when he was will do what they can when they cannot immediately after fatally struck by a do what they would. It is the law of ball below the temple. The Union success. In three years from the re- troops meanwhile were flanking the storation of peace under this voluntary enemy's rifle-pits and getting into posystem of labor, the State of Louisiana sition to direct their batteries upon the will produce threefold the produce of Cotton. Being disabled by the fire of its most prosperous year in the past."* the land and naval forces, the gunboat The first military operations in Gen- was set on fire in the night to prevent eral Banks' department were not suc- her capture. Satisfied with this result, cessful. We allude to the attempted the gunboats were withdrawn and the reinforcement of the inadequate gar- troops returned to their encampment at Thibodeaux. แ * General Banks' order, Promulgating the President's Emancipation Proclamation, New Orleans, Jan. 29th, 1863. * Chapter LXXXIV. In another direction at Baton Rouge a considerable force was stationed, which was being drilled and organized with a view of ulterior operations on the river. Twenty miles above, the enemy was in force at Port Hudson, their most important station on the Mississippi below Vicksburg. Situated on an elevated, almost perpendicular, cliff at a contracted bend of the stream, where the narrowed current ran by with great violence, its formidable line of batteries threatened absolute destruction to any hostile fleet, while on the land side the approach, easily capable of defence, was beset by swamps and other topographical difficulties. The first decided movement made in this quarter was mainly the work of the navy, and was undertaken in aid of the operations of General Grant and Admiral Porter at and below Vicksburg. At the beginning of February, it will be remembered Commander Ellet led the way in the Queen of the West in the passage of the batteries at that place. The primary design was to interrupt the supplies of the enemy from the west of the Mississippi. After inflicting much damage in this way, the vessel was lost by the treachery of a pilot, while ascending Red River. On receiving the news of this disaster, Admiral Farragut in command of the Gulf Fleet, determined to run past the rebel batteries at Port Hudson and assist the operations of Admiral Porter on the river from above. The land forces of General Banks were at the same time to threaten Port Hudson on the rear. The attempt was made in the night of the fourteenth of March. At about ten o'clock P. M. Admiral Farragut led the way at the head of his fleet on the flagship Hartford, accompanied by the gunboat Albatross, made fast to her portside; the Richmond and Genesee in like manner followed; next the Monongahela and Kineo, and finally the Mississippi, while a mortar fleet under Commander Caldwell of the Essex was brought up to shell the works. As soon as the Hartford came within range of the rebel batteries, a brisk fire was opened upon her which was returned with shot and shell. In the midst of this fire she succeeded in passing the batteries with the Albatross. The Richmond, Commander Alden, next in the line, was not so fortunate. She had run by the principal batteries and had just rounded the point when she was disabled by a shot which passed through her steam-chest and compelled her to drift down stream with a loss of three killed and ten wounded-among the latter her executive officer, Lieutenant-Com. Cummings, whose leg was severed by a shot from his body. A boatswain's-mate, it is said, "who had both legs, his right arm and left hand cut off by the explosion of a shell, as he fell to the deck, with his last breath, exclaimed, 'Don't give up the ship, lads.'"* The Genesee followed her consort in her retreat. The Monongahela and Kineo were next in the line of battle. Captain McKinstry of the former was wounded early in the action, when the command devolved upon Lieutenant Thomas, who kept the vessel on her course till in the midst of the smoke she grounded under fire of the principal batteries. By the aid of the Kineo, after about half an hour's exertion, she was released, and attempted again to advance, but her machinery was so heated that she was compelled to retire. She lost six killed and twenty wounded. The Mississippi, Commander Melanchthon Smith, the last in the line now advanced. She had made good progress without a single casualty, when, as she was pushing by the town, she grounded on the right bank of the river directly opposite the terminus of the Port Hudson and Clinton Railroad. Her engines, according to the account in the New Orleans Era, already cited, "were immediately reversed, and orders were given by Cap * New Orleans Era, March 19th, 1863. |