headed by Mayor Cheatham, to whom, as at Clarksville, every assurance of safety and protection to the people, in their person and property, was given. In the meanwhile, on the same morning, one of Commodore Foote's gunboats, with a number of transports, arrived, bring body of troops. The interview with the officers was considered satisfactory by the committee, and the mayor, in a proclamation, on the following day, respectfully requested that business be resumed, and that all our citizens, of every trade and profession, pursue their regular vocations." force on reaching Nashville to less than 10,000.* Unable to hold the city against the forces of the Union advancing by land and water, General Johnston left a rear guard, under General Floyd, to secure the stores and provisions, and proceeded with the remainder of his forces to Murfreesboro. General Floyd hav-ing General Nelson, with a considerable ing under his command the demoralized wreck of an army, mainly of fugitives, in spite of the remonstrances of the citizens, destroyed the costly railway and wire suspension bridges over the Cumberland. Besides the bridges, two valuable steamboats, in process of conversion into gunboats, were destroyed, lest they should fall into the hands of the Union army, which was hourly expected. The week which ensued was one of utter panic and confusion. Sick and wounded soldiers were dying rapidly in the overcrowded, ill-appointed hospitals; lawless soldiers were rioting, and plundering private houses; a mob was contending with the military authorities for the public stores, of which Nashville had been one of the most important depots of the Confederacy, which were at one time given to the people, at another withheld to be removed for the retreating army. Heavy rains meanwhile poured down upon the devoted region and added to the embarrassments and melancholy of the scene. On the 25th, the Union forces were at the city to receive its surrender. The advance of the army which had followed in pursuit of Johnston, after his evacuation of Bowling Green-the defences of which, when General Mitchel's command, after great exertions, reached the place, were found to be far less formidable than had been supposed-had reached the neighborhood of Nashville, two days before, when it was agreed that the formal surrender of the city should be made to General Buell on his arrival. He was now present with General Mitchel, and was waited upon at Edgefield, opposite the city, by a delegation of citizens, * General Johnston's letter to Mr. Barksdale. The same day, General Buell issued a general order to the army, from his headquarters at Nashville, congratulating his troops, "that it has been their privilege to restore the national banner to the capitol of Tennessee. He believes that thousands of hearts in every part of the State, will swell with joy to see that honored flag reinstated in a position from which it was removed in the excitement and folly of an evil hour; that the voice of her own people will soon proclaim its welcome, and that their manhood and patriotism will protect and perpetuate it." Various injunctions were added, requiring a strict observance of the rights of property, and the protection of all peaceable citizens. "We are in arms, said he, "not for the purpose of invading the rights of our fellow countrymen anywhere, but to maintain the integrity of the Union, and protect the Constitution under which its people have been prosperous and happy." Governor Harris, from his executive office at Memphis, whither the legislature had adjourned, issued on the 19th, a violent proclamation deploring the fate of Fort Donelson, and declaring that Tennessee was "now to become the grand theatre, wherein a brave people will show to the world, by their heroism and suffering, that they are worthy to be, what they have solemnly declared them ANDREW JOHNSON, GOVERNOR OF TENNESSEE. selves to be, freemen. Announcing that he would himself take the field at their head, as Governor of the State and commander-in-chief of its army, I call "said he, "upon every able-bodied man of the State, without regard to age, to enlist in its service. I command him who can obtain a weapon to march with our armies. I ask him who can repair or forge an arm, to make it ready at once for the soldier. I call upon every citizen to open his purse and his storehouses of provisions to the brave defenders of our soil. I bid the old and the young, wherever they may be, to stand as pickets to our struggling armies. *** You have done well and nobly, but the work is not yet accomplished. The enemy still flaunts his banner in your face; his foot is upon your native soil; the echo of his drum is heard in your mountains and valleys; hideous desolation will soon mark his felon track unless he is repelled. To you who are armed, and have looked death in the face, who have been tried and are the 'Old Guard,' the State appeals to uphold her standard. Encircle that standard with your valor and your heroism, and abide the fortunes of war so long as an enemy of your State shall dare confront you. The enemy relies upon your forfeiture to reënlist, and makes sure of an easy victory in your want of endurance. Disappoint him!" In a message to the legislature the following day, Governor Harris stated, that since the passage of the State act of May, 1861, he had organized and put into the field, for the confederate service, fifty-nine regiments of infantry, one regiment of cavalry, eleven cavalry battalions, and over twenty independent companies, mostly artillery. The Confederate government had armed about fifteen thousand of these troops; but to arm the remainder, Governor Harris had "to draw heavily upon the sporting guns of our citizens." 241 The new duties and responsibilities of a mixed civil and military character thrown upon the government by the occupation of so considerable a portion of a State, in open hostility to the Union, were met by the appointment by President Lincoln, of Senator Andrew Johnson, as military Governor of Tennessee. The nomination was confirmed by the Senate on its presentation, on the 4th of March, and at the same time the rank of Brigadier-General was bestowed upon the new Governor. Fully armed with authority to establish a provisional government in the State, Governor Johnson immediately left Washington, for the seat of his new duties, in company with the Hon. Horace Maynard, member of Congress from the Knoxville district of Tennessee, and the Hon. Emerson Etheridge, a loyal member of the previous Congress from eastern Tennessee, at present clerk of the House of Representatives. The party, accompanied by other prominent Union exiles, reached Nashville on the 12th of March. Governor Johnson set himself at once to prepare the way for the restoration of the State to its legitimate position in the Union-a work which would probably have had a good prospect of success, had not the presence of the confederate armies on its soil, marked it out as the "dark and bloody ground" of desperate and continuous conflict. The capture of Nashville, had, in fact, only transferred the war from Kentucky to Tennessee, and the struggle was not likely to grow less desperate as it was brought nearer the strongholds of the rebel authority. In a speech to the citizens who had assembled before his hotel, on the evening immediately after his arrival, Governor Johnson reminded his hearers of the nature and progress of the rebellion, and the moderate and reasonable course taken by the government for its suppression. He found, he said, the State without authority, its executive, legislature, and judiciary dissolved, or in abeyance; he 4 was there "to give the protection of law, actively enforced, to her citizens, and, as speedily as may be, to restore her government to the same condition as before the existing rebellion. Those who, * tive policy will be adopted. To those, especially, who in a private unofficial capacity have assumed an attitude of hostility to the government, a full and complete amnesty for all past acts and through the dark and weary night of the declarations is offered, upon the one conrebellion, have maintained their allegi-dition of their again yielding themselves ance to the Federal government, will be peaceful citizens, to the just supremacy honored. The erring and misguided, of the laws." In this spirit, blending a will be welcomed on their return. While good share of sagacity with his patriotic it may become necessary, in vindicating impulses, Governor Johnson entered the violated majesty of the law, and in upon his task, and secured the peace reasserting its imperial sway, to punish and good order of this important city, intelligent and conscious treason in high under circumstances of no ordinary emplaces, no merely retaliatory or vindic- barrassment. CHAPTER LIV. GENERAL BURNSIDE'S EXPEDITION TO NORTH CAROLINA, AND BATTLE OF ROANOKE ISLAND, FEB. 1862. lion he was summoned by Governor Sprague of Rhode Island, where his merits were well known, to take command of the 1st regiment of volunteers of that State. In the organization of the forces at Washington, previous to the battle at Bull Run, he was assigned a Brigadier's command in the division of General Hunter, and, as we have seen, was foremost in action in that engagement. His personal qualities were such as eminently fitted him for command; active, energetic, and self-reliant, of shrewd military sagacity, united with practical experience, a keen disciplinarian, frank and pleasing in manner, he secured both the respect and the affection of his men. DURING the last months of 1862, there | taken for the suppression of the rebelwas considerable activity at New York, in the preparation of the material for a combined military and naval expedition, which was understood to be placed directly under the charge of General Ambrose Everett Burnside. This gentleman, a native of Indiana, a graduate of West Point, in 1847, and subsequently an artillery officer, actively engaged in the Mexican war, and on the frontier, resigned his commission in the army, in 1853, and then became engaged in Rhode Island in the manufacture of a breechloading rifle invented by himself and bearing his name. He was thrown out of this pursuit, with considerable pecuniary embarrassment, by the failure of the Secretary of War, the secessionist Floyd, The entire military force of the expeto provide as had been expected, for the dition, as it was gathered at Annapolis, employment of the weapon in the army. numbered about sixteen thousand men, He then was employed as President of comprising 15 regiments of infantry, a the Land Office Department, and after- battalion of infantry, a battery of artilwards as Treasurer of the Illinois Cen- lery, beside a large body of gunners for tral Railway, the company with which the armed vessels, capable of rendering General McClellan was also connected. service on land, and the sailors of the When the first military measures were fleet. There were three army brigades, |