Beauregard Finally Routed.
Beauregard withdrew to Corinth, as usual, announcing a glorious victory. He addressed a letter to Grant, asking permission, under flag of truce, to send a party to the battle-field to bury the Confederate dead. He prefaced the request as follows:
"Sir, at the close of the conflict of yesterday, my forces being exhausted by the extraordinary length of the time during which they were engaged with yours on that and the preceding day, and it being apparent that you had received and were still receiving re-enforcements, I felt it my duty to withdraw my troops from the immediate scene of the conflict."
"Sir, at the close of the conflict of yesterday, my forces being exhausted by the extraordinary length of the time during which they were engaged with yours on that and the preceding day, and it being apparent that you had received and were still receiving re-enforcements, I felt it my duty to withdraw my troops from the immediate scene of the conflict."
Grant was strongly tempted to assure Beauregard that no apologies for his retreat were necessary! Buthe merely replied in a courteous note, declining the request, and stating that the dead were already interred.
The Losses on Both Sides.
The losses on both sides were officially reported as follows:
The excess of Rebel wounded was owing to the superiority of the muskets used by the Federal soldiers; and the excess of Union missing, to the capture of Prentiss' division.
How use doth breed a habit in a man.Two Gentlemen of Verona.——But let me tell the world,If he outlive the envy of this day,England did never owe so sweet a hopeSo much misconstrued.Henry IV.
How use doth breed a habit in a man.Two Gentlemen of Verona.——But let me tell the world,If he outlive the envy of this day,England did never owe so sweet a hopeSo much misconstrued.Henry IV.
How use doth breed a habit in a man.
Two Gentlemen of Verona.
——But let me tell the world,If he outlive the envy of this day,England did never owe so sweet a hopeSo much misconstrued.
Henry IV.
It was long after the battle of Shiloh before all the dead were buried. Many were interred in trenches, scores together. A friend, who was engaged in this revolting labor, told me that, after three or four days, he found himself counting off the bodies as indifferently as he would have measured cord-wood.
General Halleck soon arrived, assuming command of the combined forces of Grant, Buell, and Pope. It was a grand army.
Grant Under a Cloud.
Grant nominally remained at the head of his corps, but was deprived of power. He was under a cloud. Most injurious reports concerning his conduct at Shiloh pervaded the country. All the leading journals were represented in Halleck's army. At the daily accidental gatherings of eight or ten correspondents, Grant was the subject of angry discussion. The journalistic profession tends to make men oracular and severely critical.
Several of these writers could demonstrate conclusively that Grant was without capacity, but a favorite of Fortune; that his great Donelson victory was achieved in spite of military blunders which ought to have defeated him.
He Serenely Smokes and Waits.
The subject of all this contention bore himself withundisturbed serenity. Sherman, while constantly declaring that he cared nothing for the newspapers, was foolishly sensitive to every word of criticism. But Grant, whom they really wounded, appeared no more disturbed by these paper bullets of the brain than by the leaden missiles of the enemy. He silently smoked and waited. The only protest I ever knew him to utter was to the correspondent of a journal which had denounced him with great severity:
"Your paper is very unjust to me; but time will make it all right. I want to be judged only by my acts."
When the army began to creep forward, I messed at Grant's head-quarters, with his chief of staff; and around the evening camp-fires I saw much of the general. He rarely uttered a word upon the political bearings of the war; indeed, he said little upon any subject. With his eternal cigar, and his head thrown slightly to one side, for hours he would sit silently before the fire, or walk back and forth, with eyes upon the ground, or look on at our whist-table, now and then making a suggestion about the play.
Most of his pictures greatly idealize his full, rather heavy face. The journalists called him stupid. One of myconfrèresused to say:
"How profoundly surprised Mrs. Grant must have been, when she woke up and learned that her husband was a great man!"
He impressed me as possessing great purity, integrity, and amiability, with excellent judgment and boundless pluck. But I should never have suspected him of military genius. Indeed, nearly every man of whom, at the beginning of the war, I prophesied a great career, proved inefficient, andvice versâ.
Jealousies of Military Men.
Military men seem to cherish more jealousies than members of any other profession, except physicians andartistes. At almost every general head-quarters, one heard denunciations of rival commanders. Grant was above this "mischievous foul sin of chiding." I never heard him speak unkindly of a brother officer. Still, the soldier's taint had slightly poisoned him. He regarded Rosecrans with peculiar antipathy, and finally accepted the command of our combined armies only on condition that he should be at once removed.
Hooker once boasted that he had the best army on the planet. One would have declared that Grant commanded the worst. There was little of that order, perfect drill, or pride, pomp, and circumstance, seen among Buell's troops and in the Army of the Potomac. But Grant's rough, rugged soldiers would fight wonderfully, and were not easily demoralized. If their line became broken, every man, from behind a tree, rock, or stump, blazed away at the enemy on his own account. They did not throw up their hats at sight of their general, but were wont to remark, with a grim smile:
"There goes the old man. He doesn't say much; but he's a pretty hard nut for Johnny Reb. to crack."
Unlike Halleck, Grant did not pretend to familiarity with the details of military text-books. He could not move an army with that beautiful symmetry which McClellan displayed; but his pontoons were always up, and his ammunition trains were never missing.
Though not occupied with details, he must have given them close attention; for, while other commanding generals had forty or fifty staff-officers, brilliant with braid and buttons, Grant allowed himself but six or seven.
The Union and Rebel Wounded.
Within ten days after the battle of Shiloh, nineteen large steamers, crowded with wounded, passed down theriver. In the long rows of cots which filled their cabins and crowded their guards, Rebel and Union soldiers were lying side by side, and receiving the same attendance.
Scores of volunteer physicians aided the regular army surgeons. Hundreds of volunteer nurses, many of them wives, sisters, and mothers, came from every walk of life to join in the work of mercy. Hands hardened with toil, and hands that leisure and luxury left white and soft, were bathing fevered brows, supporting wearied heads, washing repulsive wounds, combing matted and bloody locks.
Patient forms kept nightly vigils beside the couches; gentle tones dropped priceless words of sympathy; and, when all was over, tender hands closed the fixed eyes, and smoothed the hair upon the white foreheads. Thousands of poor fellows carried to their homes, both North and South, grateful memories of those heroic women; thousands of hearts, wrung with the tidings that loved ones were gone, found comfort in the knowledge that their last hours were soothed by those self-denying and blessed ministrations.
One man, who had received several bullets, lay undiscovered for eight days in a little thicket, with no nourishment except rain-water. After discovery he lived nearly two weeks. At some points the ground was so closely covered with mutilated bodies that it was difficult to step between them. One soldier, rigid in death, was found lying upon the back, holding in his fixed hand, and regarding with stony eyes, the daguerreotype of a woman and child. It was terribly suggestive of the desolate homes and bleeding hearts which almost force one to Cicero's conclusion, that any peace is better than the justest war.
They are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time.Hamlet.
They are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time.Hamlet.
They are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time.
Hamlet.
An Interview with General Sherman.
General Sherman was very violent toward the Press. Some newspapers had treated him unjustly early in the war. While he commanded in Kentucky, his eccentricities were very remarkable, and a journalist started the report that Sherman was crazy, which obtained wide credence. There was, at least, method in his madness; for his supposed insanity which declared that the Government required two hundred thousand troops in the West, though hooted at the time, proved wisdom and prophecy.
Nevertheless, he was very erratic. When I first saw him in Missouri, during Fremont's administration, his eye had a half-wild expression, probably the result of excessive smoking. From morning till night he was never without his cigar. To the nervous-sanguine temperament, indicated by his blonde hair, light eyes, and fair complexion, tobacco is peculiarly injurious.
While many insisted that no correspondent could meet Sherman without being insulted, I sought him at his tent in the field; he was absent with a scouting party, but soon returned, with one hand bandaged from his Shiloh wound. A staff-officer introduced me:
"General, this is Mr. ----."
"How do you do, Mr. ----?" inquired Sherman, with great suavity, offering me his uninjured hand.
"Correspondent ofThe New York Tribune," added the lieutenant.
His Complaints about the Press.
The general's manner changed from Indian summer to a Texas norther, and he asked, in freezing tones:
"Have you not come to the wrong place, sir?"
"I think not. I want to learn some facts about the late battle from your own lips. You complain that journalists misrepresent you. How can they avoid it, when you refuse to give them proper information? Some officers are drunkards and charlatans; but you would think it unjust if we condemned all on that account. Is it not equally absurd to anathematize every man of my profession for the sins of a few unworthy members?"
"Perhaps it is. Sit down. Will you have a cigar? The trouble is, that you of the Press have no responsibilities. Some worthless fellow, wielding a quill, may send falsehoods about me to thousands of people who can never hear them refuted. What can I do? His readers do not know that he is without character. It would be useless to prosecute him. If he would even fight there would be some satisfaction in that; but a slanderer is likely to be a coward as well."
"True; but when some private citizen slanders you on the street or in a drinking-saloon, you do not find it necessary to pull the nose of every civilian whom you meet. Reputable journalists have just as much pride in their profession as you have in yours. This tendency to treat them superciliously and harshly, which encourages flippant young staff-officers to insult them, tends to drive them home in disgust, and leave their places to be supplied by a less worthy class; so you only aggravate the evil you complain of."
Sherman's Personal Appearance.
After further conversation on this subject, Sherman gave me a very entertaining account of the battle. Since I first saw him, his eye had grown much calmer, and his nervous system healthier. He is tall, of bony frame, sparein flesh, with thin, wrinkled face, sandy beard and hair, and bright, restless eyes. His face indicates great vitality and activity; his manner is restless; his discourse rapid and earnest. He looks rather like an anxious man of business than an ideal soldier, suggesting the exchange, and not the camp.
He has great capacity for labor—sometimes working for twenty consecutive hours. He sleeps little, nor do the most powerful opiates relieve his terrible cerebral excitement. Indifferent to dress and to fare, he can live on hard bread and water, and fancies any one else can do so. Often irritable, and sometimes rude, he is a man of great originality and daring, and a most valuable lieutenant for a general of coolness and judgment, like Grant or Thomas. With one of them to plan or modify, he is emphatically the man to execute. His purity and patriotism are beyond all question. He did not enter the army to speculate in cotton, or to secure a seat in the United States Senate, but to serve the country.
Military weaknesses are often amusing. A prominent officer on Halleck's staff, who had served with Scott in Mexico, had something to do with fortifying Island Number Ten, after its capture. An obscure country newspaper gave another officer the credit. Seeking the agent of the Associated Press at Halleck's head-quarters, the aggrieved engineer remarked:
"By the way, Mr. Weir, I have been carrying a paper in my pocket for several days, but have forgotten to hand it to you. Here it is."
And he produced a letter page of denial, upon which the ink was not yet dry, stating that the island had been fortified under the immediate direction of General ----, the well-known officer of the regular army, who served upon the staff of Lieutenant-General Scott during theMexican war, and was at present ----, ----, and ---- upon the staff of General Halleck.
"I rely upon your sense of justice," said this ornament of the staff, "to give this proper publicity."
Humors of the Telegraph.
Mr. Weir, with a keen sense of the ridiculous, sent the long dispatch word for word to the Associated Press, adding: "You may rest assured that this is perfectly reliable, because every word of it was written by the old fool himself!" All the newspaper readers in the country had the formal dispatch, and all the telegraph corps had their merriment over this confidential addendum.
Halleck's command contained eighty thousand effective men, who were nearly all veterans. His line was ten miles in length, with Grant on the right, Buell in the center, and Pope on the left.
The grand army was like a huge serpent, with its head pinned on our left, and its tail sweeping slowly around toward Corinth. Its majestic march was so slow that the Rebels had ample warning. It was large enough to eat up Beauregard at one mouthful; but Halleck crept forward at the rate of about three-quarters of a mile per day. Thousands and thousands of his men died from fevers and diarrhœa.
There was great dissatisfaction at his slow progress. Pope was particularly impatient. One day he had a very sharp skirmish with the enemy. Our position was strong. General Palmer, who commanded on the front, reported that he could hold it against the world, the flesh, and the devil; but Halleck telegraphed to Pope three times within an hour not to be drawn into a general engagement. After the last dispatch, Pope retired, leaving the enemy in possession of the field. How he did storm about it!
The little army which Pope had brought from thecapture of Island Number Ten was perfectly drilled and disciplined, and he handled it with rare ability. Much of his subsequent unpopularity arose from his imprudent and violent language. He sometimes indulged in the most unseemly profanity and billingsgate within hearing of a hundred people.
Weaknesses of Sundry Generals.
But his personal weaknesses were pardonable compared with those of some other prominent officers. During Fremont's Missouri campaign, I knew one general who afterward enjoyed a well-earned national reputation for skill and gallantry. His head-quarters were the scenes of nightly orgies, where whisky punches and draw-poker reigned from dark until dawn. In the morning his tent was a strange museum of bottles, glasses, sugar-bowls, playing-cards, gold, silver, and bank-notes. I knew another western officer, who, during the heat of a Missouri battle, according to the newspaper reports, inspirited his men by shouting:
"Go in, boys! Remember Lyon! Remember the old flag!"
He did use those words, but no enemy was within half a mile, and he was lying drunk on the ground, flat upon his back. Afterward, repenting in sackcloth and ashes, he did the State some service, and his delinquency was never made public.
At Antietam, a general, well known both in Europe and America, was reported disabled by a spent shell, which struck him in the breast. The next morning, he gave me a minute history of it, assuring me that he still breathed with difficulty and suffered greatly from internal soreness. The fact was that he was disabled by a bottle of whisky, having been too hospitable to that seductive friend!
"John Pope, Major-General Commanding."
After the evacuation of Corinth, Pope's reputation suffered greatly from a false dispatch, assertingthat he had captured ten thousand prisoners. Halleck alone was responsible for the report. Pope was in the rear. One of his subordinates on the front telegraphed him substantially as follows:
"The woods are full of demoralized and flying Rebels. Some of my officers estimate their number as high as ten thousand. Many of them have already come into my lines."
"The woods are full of demoralized and flying Rebels. Some of my officers estimate their number as high as ten thousand. Many of them have already come into my lines."
Pope forwarded this message, which said nothing about taking prisoners, to Halleck, without erasing or adding a line; and Halleck, smarting under his mortifying failure at Corinth, telegraphed that Pope reported the capture of ten thousand Rebels. Pope's reputation for veracity was fatally wounded, and the newspapers burlesqued him mercilessly.
One of my comrades lay sick and wounded at the residence of General Clinton B. Fisk, of St. Louis. On a Sunday afternoon the general was reading to him from the Bible an account of the first contraband. This historic precedent was the servant of an Amalekite, who came into David's camp and proposed, if assured of freedom, to show the King of Israel a route which would enable him to surprise his foes. The promise was given, and the king fell upon the enemy, whom he utterly destroyed. While our host was reading the list of the spoils, the prisoners, slaves, women, flocks and herds captured by David, the sick journalist lifted his attenuated finger, and in his weak, piping voice, said:
"Stop, General; just look down to the bottom of that list, and see if it is not signed John Pope, Major-General commanding!"
Halleck's Faux Pas at Corinth.
At last, Halleck's army reached Corinth, but the birdhad flown. No event of the war reflected so much credit upon the Rebels and so much discredit upon the Unionists as Beauregard's evacuation. He did not disturb himself until Halleck's Parrott guns had thrown shots within fourteen feet of his own head-quarters. Then, keeping up a vigorous show of resistance on his front, he deserted the town, leaving behind not a single gun, or ambulance, or even a sick or wounded man in the hospital.
Halleck lost thenceforth the name of "Old Brains," which some imaginative person had given him, and which tickled for a time the ears of his soldiers. The only good thing he ever did, in public, was to make two brief speeches. When he first reached St. Louis, upon being called out by the people, he said:
"With your help, I will drive the enemy out of Missouri."
Called upon again, on leaving St. Louis for Washington, to assume the duties of general-in-chief, he made an equally brief response:
"Gentlemen: I promised to drive the enemy out of Missouri; I have done it!"
Halleck's Army, before Corinth, }April 23, 1862. }
Heavy re-enforcements are arriving. The woods, in luxuriant foliage, are spiced with
"——a dream of forest sweets,Of odorous blooms and sweet contents,"
"——a dream of forest sweets,Of odorous blooms and sweet contents,"
and the deserted orchards are fragrant with apple and cherry blossoms.
Out on the Front.
May 11.
Still we creep slowly along. Pope's head-quarters arenow within the borders of Mississippi. Out on his front you find several hundred acres of cotton-field and sward, ridged with graves from a recent hot skirmish. Carcasses of a hundred horses, killed during the battle, are slowly burning under piles of rails, covered with a layer of earth, that their decay may not taint the atmosphere.
Beyond, our infantry pickets present muskets and order you to halt. If you are accompanied by a field-officer, or bear a pass "by order of Major-General Halleck," you can cross this Rubicon. A third of a mile farther are our vedettes, some mounted, others lying in the shade beside their grazing horses, but keeping a sharp look-out in front. In a little rift of the woods, half a mile away, you see through your field-glass a solitary horseman clad in butternut. Two or three more, and sometimes forty or fifty, come out of the woods and join him, but they keep very near their cover, and soon go back. Those are the enemy's pickets. You hear the drum beat in the Rebel lines, and the shrill whistle of the locomotives at Corinth, which is three miles distant.
May 19.
Along our entire front, almost daily, the long roll is sounded, and the ground jarred by the dull rumble of cannonade. The little attention paid to these skirmishes, where we lose from fifty to one hundred men, illustrates the magnitude of the war.
We feel the earth vibrate, and look inquiringly into the office of the telegraph which accompanies every corps.
"It is on Buell's center, or on Grant's right," the operator replies.
If it does not become rapid and prolonged, no furtherquestions are asked. At night, awakened by the sharp rattle of musketry, we raise our heads, listen for the alarm-drum, and, not hearing it, roll over in our blankets, to court again the drowsy god.
Ride out with me to the front, five miles from Halleck's head-quarters. The country is undulating and woody, with a few cotton-fields and planters' houses. The beautiful groves open into delicious vistas of green grass or rolling wheat; luxuriant flowers perfume the vernal air, and the rich foliage already seems to display—
——"The tintings and the fingerings of June,As she blossoms into beauty and sings her Summer tune!"
——"The tintings and the fingerings of June,As she blossoms into beauty and sings her Summer tune!"
Here is a deserted camp of a division which has moved forward. Three or four adjacent farmers are gathering up the barrels, boxes, provisions, and otherdébris, left behind by the troops.
Drilling, Digging, and Skirmishing.
Here is a division on drill, advancing in line of battle, the skirmishers thrown out in front, deploying, gathering in groups, or falling on their faces at the word of command.
Beyond those white tents our soldiers, in gray shirts and blue pants, are busily plying the spade. They throw up a long rampart notched with embrasures for cannon. We have already built fifty miles of breastworks.
A little in the rear are the heavy siege-guns, where they can be brought up quickly; a little in front, the field artillery, with the horses harnessed and tied to trees, ready for use at a moment's notice. Near the workmen, their comrades, who do the more legitimate duty of the soldier, are standing on their arms, to repel anysortiefrom the enemy. Their guns, with the burnished barrelsand bayonets glistening in the sun, are stacked in long rows, while the men stand in little groups, or sit under the trees, playing cards, reading letters or newspapers. More than twenty thousand copies of the daily papers of the western cities and New York are sold in the army at ten cents each. The number of letters which go out from the camps in each day's mail is nearly as large.
When this parapet is completed, we shall go forward a few hundred yards, and throw up another; and thus we advance slowly toward Corinth.
Ride still farther, and you find the infantry pickets. The vedettes are drawn in, if there is any skirmishing going on. From the extreme front, you catch an occasional glimpse of the Rebels—"Butternuts," as they are termed in camp, from their cinnamon-hued homespun, dyed with butternut extract. They are dodging among the trees, and, if you are wise, you will get behind a tree yourself, and beware how you show your head.
Experiences among the Sharp-shooters.
Already one of their sharp-shooters notices you. Puff, comes a cloud of smoke from his rifle; in the same breath you hear the explosion, and the sharp, ringing "ping" of the bullet through the air! Capital shots are many of these long, lank, loose-jointed Mississippians and Texans, whose rifles are sometimes effective at ten and twelve hundred yards. Yesterday, one of them concealed himself in the dense foliage of a tree-branch, and picked off several of our soldiers. At last, one of our own sharp-shooters took him in hand, and, at the sixth discharge, brought him down to the ground. This sharp-shooting is a needless aggravation of the horrors of war; but if the enemy indulges in it, you have no recourse but to do likewise.
Horses Stolen Every Day.
Stealing is the inevitable accompaniment of camp life—"convey, the wise" call it. I have a steed, cadaverous and bony, but with good locomotive powers. There was profound policy in my selection. For five consecutive nights that horse was stolen, but no thief ever kept him after seeing him by day-light. In the morning, he would always come browsing back. My friend and tent-mate "Carlton," ofThe Boston Journal, had a more vaulting ambition. He procured a showy horse, which proved the most expensive luxury in all his varied experience. The special aptitude of the animal was to be stolen. Regularly, seven mornings in the week, our African factotum would thrust his woolly head into the tent, and awaken us with this salutation:
"Breakfast is ready. Mr. Coffin, your horse is gone again."
By hard search and liberal rewards, he would be reclaimed during the day from some cavalry soldier, who averred that he had found him running loose. After being impaled and nearly killed upon a rake-handle, the poor brute, hardly able to walk ten paces, was stolen again, and never re-appeared. My friend now remembered his showy steed, and the last five-dollar note which he sent in fruitless pursuit, among blessings which brightened as they took their flight.
Cairo, Ill.,May 21.
Halleck Expels the War Correspondents.
General Halleck has expelled all the correspondents from the army, on the plea that he must exclude "unauthorized hangers-on," to keep spies out of his camps. His refusal to acceptanyguaranties of their loyalty and prudence, even from the President himself, proves that this plea was a shallow subterfuge. The real trouble is, that Halleck is not willing to have his conduct exhibitedto the country through any other medium than official reports. "As false as a bulletin," has passed into a proverb.
The journalists received invitations to remain, from friends holding commissions in the army, from major-generals down to lieutenants; but, believing their presence just as legitimate and needful as that of any soldier or officer, they determined not to skulk about camps like felons, but all left in a body. Their individual grievances are nothing to the public; but this is a grave issue between the Military Power and the rights of the Press and the People.
——Whose tongueOutvenoms all the worms of Nile.Cymbeline.
——Whose tongueOutvenoms all the worms of Nile.Cymbeline.
——Whose tongueOutvenoms all the worms of Nile.
Cymbeline.
Bloodthirstiness of Rebel Women.
No history of the war is likely to do full justice to the bitterness of the Rebel women. Female influence tempted thousands of young men to enter the Confederate service against their own wishes and sympathies. Women sometimes evinced incredible rancor and bloodthirstiness. The most startling illustration of the brutalizing effect of Slavery appeared in the absence of that sweetness, charity, and tenderness toward the suffering, which is the crowning grace of womanhood.
A southern Unionist, the owner of many slaves, said to me:
"I suppose I have not struck any of my negroes for ten years. When they need correcting, my wife always does it."
If he had a horse or a mule requiring occasional whipping, would he put the scourge in the hands of his little daughter, and teach her to wield it, from her tender years? How infinitely more must it brutalize and corrupt her when the victim is a man—the most sacred thing that God has made—his earthly image and his human temple!
The Battle of Memphis.
Before we captured Memphis, the sick and wounded Union prisoners were in a condition of great want and suffering. Women of education, wealth, and high social position visited the hospitals to minister to Rebel patients.Frequently entering the Federal wards from curiosity, they used toward the groaning patients expressions like this:
"I would like to give you one dose! You would never fight against the South again!"
In what happy contrast to this shone the self-denying ministrations of northern women, to friend and enemy alike!
In Memphis, on the evening of June 5th, General Jeff. Thompson, commanding the Rebel cavalry, and Commodore Edward Montgomery, commanding the Rebel flotilla, stated at the Gayoso House that there would be a battle the next morning, in which the Yankee fleet would be destroyed in just about two hours.
Just after daylight, the Rebel flotilla attacked ours, two miles above the city. We had five iron-clads and several rams, which were then experimental. They were light, agile little stern-wheel boats, whose machinery was not at all protected against shots. The battle occurred in full view of the city. Though it began soon after daylight, it was witnessed by ten thousand people upon the high bluff—an anxious, excited crowd. The Rebels dared not be too demonstrative, and the Unionists dared not whisper a word of their long-cherished and earnest hopes.
Gallant Exploits of the Rams.
While the two fleets were steaming toward each other, Colonel Ellet, determined to succeed or to die, daringly pushed forward with his little rams, the Monarch and Queen of the West. With these boats, almost as fragile as pasteboard, he steamed directly into the Rebel flotilla. One of his rams struck the great gunboat Sterling Price with a terrific blow, crushing timbers and tearing away the entire larboard wheel-house. The Price drifted helplessly down the stream and stranded. Another ofEllet's rams ran at full speed into the General Lovell, cutting her in twain. The Rebel boat filled and sunk.
From the shore, it was a most impressive sight. There was the Lovell, with holiday decorations, crowded with men and firing her guns, when the little ram struck her, crushing in her side, and she went down like a plummet. In three minutes, even the tops of her tall chimneys disappeared under water. Scores of swimming and drowning Rebels in the river were rescued by boats from the Union fleet.
One of the rams now ran alongside and grappled the Beauregard, and, through hose, drenched her decks with scalding water, while her cannoneers dared not show their heads to Ellet's sharpshooters, who were within a few feet of them. Another Rebel boat came up to strike the ram, but the agile little craft let go her hold and backed out. The blow intended for her struck the Beauregard, which instantly went down, "hoist with his own petar."
The Sumter and the Little Rebel, both disabled, were stranded on the Arkansas shore. The Jeff. Thompson was set on fire and abandoned by her crew. In a few minutes there was an enormous dazzling flash of light, a measureless volume of black smoke, and a startling roar, which seemed to shake the earth to its very center. For several seconds the air was filled with falling timbers. Exploding her magazine, the Rebel gunboat expired with a great pyrotechnic display.
The General Bragg received a fifty-pound shot, which tore off a long plank under her water-mark, and she was captured in a sinking condition. The Van Dorn, the only Rebel boat which survived the conflict, turned and fled down the river.
The battle lasted just one hour and three minutes. It was the most startling, dramatic, and memorable displayof the whole war. On our side, no one was injured except Colonel Ellet, who had performed such unexampled feats with his little rams. A splinter, which struck him in the leg, inflicted a fatal wound.
As our fleet landed, a number of news-boys sprang on shore, and, a moment after, were running through the street, shouting:
"Here's yourNew-York TribuneandHerald—only ten cents in silver!"
The correspondents, before the city was formally surrendered, had strolled through the leading streets. At the Gayoso House they registered their names immediately under those of the fugacious Rebel general, and ordered dinner.
The Memphis Rebels, who had predicted a siege rivaling Saragossa and Londonderry, were in a condition of stupor for two weeks after our arrival. They rubbed their eyes wonderingly, to see Union officers and Abolition journalists at large without any suggestions of hanging or tarring and feathering. Remembering my last visit, it was with peculiar satisfaction that I appended in enormous letters to my signature upon the hotel register, the name of the journal I served.
A Sailor on a Lark.
On the day of the capture, an intoxicated seaman from one of the gun-boats, who had been shut up for several months, went on shore "skylarking." Offering his arms to the first two negro women he met, he promenaded the whole length of Main street. The Memphis Rebels were suffering for an outrage, and here was one just to their mind.
"If that is the way, sir," remarked one of them, "that your people propose to treat southern gentlemen and ladies—if they intend to thrust upon us such a disgusting spectacle of negro equality, it will be perilousfor them. Do they expect to conciliate our people in this manner?"
I mildly suggested that the era of conciliation ceased when the era of fighting began. The sailor was arrested and put in the guard-house.
Appearance of the Captured city.
Our officers mingled freely with the people. No citizens insulted our soldiers in the streets; no woman repeated the disgraceful scenes of New Orleans by spitting in the faces of the "invaders." The Unionists received us as brothers from whom they had long been separated. One lady brought out from its black hiding-place, in her chimney, a National flag, which had been concealed there from the beginning of the war. A Loyalist told me that, coming out of church on Sunday, he was thrilled with the news that the Yankees had captured Fort Donelson; but, with a grave face, he replied to his informant:
"That is sad business for us, is it not?"
Reaching home, with his wife and sister, they gave vent to their exuberant joy. He could not huzza, and so he relieved himself by leaping two or three times over a center-table!
There were many genuine Rebels whose eyes glared at us with the hatred of caged tigers. Externally decorous, they would remark, ominously, that they hoped our soldiers would not irritate the people, lest it should deluge the streets with blood. They proposed fabulous wagers that Sterling Price's troops could whip the whole Union army; circulated daily reports that the Confederates had recaptured New Orleans and Nashville, and talked mysteriously about the fatality of the yellow fever, and the prospect that it would soon break out.
Gladness shone from the eyes of all the negroes. Their dusky faces were radiant with welcome, and many women, turbaned in bright bandanas, thronged the office ofthe provost-marshal, applying for passage to the North. We found Memphis as torpid as Syria, where Yusef Browne declared that he saw only one man exhibit any sign of activity, and he was engaged in tumbling from the roof of a house! But stores were soon opened, and traders came crowding in from the North. Most of them were Jews.
Everywhere we saw the deep eyes and pronounced features of that strange, enterprising people. I observed one of them, with the Philistines upon him, marching to the military prison. The pickets had caught him with ten thousand dollars' worth of boots and shoes, which he was taking into Dixie. He bore the miscarriage with great philosophy, bewailing neither his ducats nor his daughter, his boots nor his liberty—smiling complacently, and finding consolation in the vilest of cigars. But in his dark, sad eye was a gleam of latent vengeance, which he doubtless wreaked upon the first unfortunate customer who fell into his clutches after his release.
Glancing at the guests who crowded the dining-hall of the Gayoso, one might have believed that the lost tribes of Israel were gathering there for the Millennium.
Grant Orders Away the Jews.
Many of them engaged in contraband traffic, supplying the Rebels with food, and even with ammunition. Some months after, these very gross abuses induced Grant to issue a sweeping ukase expelling all Jews from his department—an order which the President wisely countermanded.
The Rebel authorities had destroyed all the cotton, sugar, and molasses they could find; but these articles now began to emerge from novel hiding-places. One gentleman had fifty bales of cotton in his closed parlor. Hundreds of bales were concealed in the woods, in lofts, and in cellars. Much sugar was buried. One man, entombingfifteen hogsheads, neglected to throw up a mound to turn off the water; when he dug for his sugar, its linked sweetness wastoolong drawn out! The hogsheads were empty.
On the 17th of June, a little party of Union officers came galloping into the city from the country. They were evidently no gala-day soldiers. Their sun-browned faces, dusty clothing, and jaded horses bespoke hard campaigns and long marches.
One horseman, in a blue cap and plain blouse, bore no mark of rank, but was noticeable for the peculiar brilliancy of his dark, flashing eye. This modest soldier was Major-General Lew. Wallace; and his division arrived a few hours after. He established his quarters at the Gayoso, in the same apartments which had been occupied successively by four Rebel commanders, Pillow, Polk, Van Dorn, and Price.
A Rebel Paper Supervised.
The Memphis Argus, a bitter Secession sheet, had been allowed to continue publication, though its tone was very objectionable. General Wallace at once addressed to the proprietors the following note:
"As the closing of your office might be injurious to you pecuniarily, I send Messrs. Richardson, ofThe New York Tribune, and Knox, ofThe New York Herald,—two gentlemen of ample experience—to take charge of the editorial department of your paper. The business and management will be left to you."
"As the closing of your office might be injurious to you pecuniarily, I send Messrs. Richardson, ofThe New York Tribune, and Knox, ofThe New York Herald,—two gentlemen of ample experience—to take charge of the editorial department of your paper. The business and management will be left to you."
The publishers, glad to continue upon any terms, acquiesced, and thereafter every morning, beforeThe Arguswent to press, the proof-sheets were sent to us for revision.
The first dress-parade of Wallace's original regiment, the Eleventh Indiana Infantry, was attended by hundreds of Memphians, curious to see northern troopsdrawn up in line. They wore no bright trappings or holiday attire. Their well-kept arms shone in the fading sunlight, a line of polished steel; but their soiled uniforms had left their brightness behind in many hard-fought battles. They went through the drill with rare precision. The Rebel bystanders clapped their hands heartily, with a certain unconscious pride that these soldiers were their fellow-Americans. The spectacle dimmed their faith in their favorite five-to-one theory.
"Well, John," asked one of them beside me, "how many regiments like that do you think one of ours could whip?"
"I think that whipping one would be a pretty hard day's work!" was the reply.
"A Dam Black-Harted Ablichiness."
Months before our arrival, a Union employé of the Memphis and Ohio Railroad sold a watch to a Secession comrade. Vainly attempting to collect the pay, he finally wrote a pressing letter. The debtor sent back the dun with this reply: