Personal Recollections of Distinguished Generals

The purpose of this volume is to make more familiar to the general public the actual characters of some of our great military leaders during the late war. I have attempted to portray them not as on parade, but in undress uniform, and to illustrate not only their great military qualities, but more particularly their mental peculiarities and characteristics. These pages will be found to contain many facts about some of the great battles which official reports have left untold, with such recollections of our generals as history proper will not perhaps condescend to record, and to embrace singular facts about great campaigns and strange stories of great men. The portraits are freely drawn. They are made from actual studies, if not special sittings, and while taking care to give every beauty, I have omitted none of the deformities or blemishes of my subjects, though I have told in full detail their virtues, and have touched on their faults and vices lightly. I have avoided alike extreme extravagance in praise or censure. Still there is enough shadow to the pictures to give the necessary, if not agreeable contrast to the lights. The reader must not, however, mistake the stand-point from which I have written. Distance, unfortunately for truth, lends enchantment not only to objects, but to men. The atmosphere of Olympus produces many phantasmagoria, and the great at a distance exist to our eyes in a sort of mirage. The philosophy of perspective as applied to natural objects is reversed when applied to mankind, and there are very few men who do not grow smaller as one approaches them. Most men are pyramidal in shape only, not proportions. "No man is a hero to his valet." Even Jupiter was ridiculous at times to Homer. Very few generals have appeared great to the war correspondents; and though very few of the latter can claim to be descendants of Diogenes, they can assert, with equal positiveness, that very few of the generals have been Alexanders, and that "the very sun shines through them." I have written under the disadvantage of being too near the objects drawn; and those who do not know the subjects as well may imagine I have made them undeservedly Liliputian in dimensions.

Writing contemporaneous history is the most thankless of tasks, and I discover also one of the least independent of labors. Still I have not written with a goose-quill, and there has been some gall in my ink, yet I do not think I have any thing in the ensuing chapters to blot. I do not think I have done any man injustice. I have written many sentences and made many assertions which will doubtless be termed strong, but in writing these I am only the amanuensis of truth; and I write with the firm belief that "historical truth should be only less sacred than religious truth."

I have no doubt, however, that others will think differently after perusing the book. When publishing in Harper's Magazine I was told that the language of some of these sketches offended the subjects, but I have been unable to find any fact that ought to be stated otherwise. I think it best to say, for the benefit of all who may choose to object or condemn the volume as now published, that I have written nothing that I do not believe to be true – I trust not one sentence that, dying, I would wish to blot, and certainly not one word that, living, I intend to retract.

New York, Sept., 1866.

CHAPTER I.

SHERMAN AS A STRATEGIST

Of the few really great men who have been developed by the late war in this country, and who will leave a lasting impression on the minds of the people, William Tecumseh Sherman may be regarded as the most original. His name has been made more widely prominent, and his character more universally popular, than that of any other of our heroes; but it has been less in consequence of his brilliant success as a leader than by reason of his strongly-marked characteristics of person and mind. He is, without doubt, the most original and eccentric, though not the most powerful – the most interesting, though not the most impressive character developed by the rebellion. He is by far our most brilliant general, but not by any means the most reliable; the most fascinating, but not the most elegant; the quickest, but not the safest; the first to resolve, but not the most resolute. As a man he is always generous, but not uniformly just; affectionate by nature, but not at all times kind in demonstration; confiding, and yet suspicious; obstinate, yet vacillating; decided, but not tenacious – a mass of contradictions so loosely and yet so happily thrown together as to produce the most interesting combination imaginable. General Sherman's character has many beauties and virtues, but also many glaring defects and faults. His picture, as I have seen and studied it, possesses what the artists call "great breadth of light and shade," and is full of contrasts alternately pleasing and offensive, and which, in order to properly analyze the character, should be portrayed and described with equal force and impartiality. He is a character without a parallel among his contemporaries, though not without a contrast; and it is for the latter reason that I have chosen his character as the one upon which to base, as it were, the following estimates of the characters of his fellow-officers of the United States army, and not because I think, as may be supposed, that he deserves the first place in the rank of our great captains. The war lasted long enough to give the leaders, if not their proper places in popular estimation, at least their true linear rank in the army. General Sherman may be considered as first among the strategists of the war; General George H. Thomas as first among the tacticians; but Grant, combining the qualities of both tactician and strategist, must always be ranked as greatly the superior of both Thomas and Sherman.

General Sherman may be described as a bundle of nerves all strung to their greatest tension. No woman was ever more painfully nervous; but there is nothing of the woman's weakness in Sherman's restlessness. It is not, as with others, a defect of the organization; it is really Sherman's greatest strength, for from it results the brilliancy of conception and design which has characterized his strategic movements, the originality which has appeared in his views on political economy and the policy of war, and the overwhelming energy which is "his all in all," the secret and cause of his great success. From his extreme nervousness results the most striking feature of his character – a peculiar nervous energy which knows no cessation, and is resistless. It is not merely that energy and quickness of movement which naturally belongs to nervous organizations, but intensified a hundred fold. At the same time, it is energy without system, and oftentimes without judgment, but nevertheless always effective. General Sherman is the engine, but he is not always the engineer. He furnishes the motive power, but he frequently requires some person or thing to keep him to the track; in fact, he requires to be controlled and directed. He is untiring in his efforts; you can never dismay him with the amount or frighten him with the dangers of a task; and he hesitates at nothing, matters great and small receiving his attention. He is no believer in that too common fallacy that labor is a wearisome waste of the physical and vital powers; a punishment, not a privilege; and degrading, not elevating. Work is necessary to his existence, and hard, earnest work at that. Always a hard, earnest worker, he devoted, during the continuance of the war, but little time to sleep, and that little sleep was never sound. His active mind, I once heard him say to a fellow-officer, delights in preposterous dreams and impossible fancies, and, waking or sleeping, continues ever active in planning and executing.

A few anecdotes will perhaps better illustrate the nature of this nervous energy. The most remarkable instance of this characteristic which I can now recall occurred at Nashville, Tennessee. When Sherman assumed command there in March, 1864, the great difficulty in the way of an advance from Chattanooga upon the enemy, then covering Atlanta and the Georgia railroads, was the lack of provisions at Chattanooga and Knoxville. The military agent of the railroads from Nashville to Chattanooga was running through to the army at the latter point about ninety car-loads of rations per day. This merely served to feed the army then gathered there; nothing was accumulating for the spring campaign. General Sherman demanded the cause of this insufficient supply of rations. The agent reported that he needed both cars and locomotives, and added it was impossible to obtain them. General Sherman answered that nothing was impossible, and immediately began to devise means by which to remedy the evil. After a short deliberation, he decided to seize a sufficiency of cars and locomotives in Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois, and at once went to work to do so. In an incredibly short space of time he extended the northern terminus of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad through the former city, a distance of three miles, to the Ohio River. On the levee, or wharf, he built an inclined plane to the water's edge. One of the ferry-boats which plied between Louisville and Jeffersonville was seized, and especially prepared by the laying of rails across its bow and stern to carry cars and locomotives. On the Indiana side of the river he extended the Jeffersonville Railroad through that town to the Ohio River, and built another inclined plane from the bluff on which the town is situated down the steep wharf to the water's edge. At the same time he ordered the impressment of the necessary cars and locomotives from the various northwestern railroads, taking them off routes as far north as Chicago, and rushed them off to Nashville, crossing the Ohio by the means he had provided. The effect was soon visible. In a month after this movement began the railroad agents reported that they were running two hundred and seventy cars per day through to Chattanooga. By the 20th of April, the day Sherman left Nashville to begin his Atlanta campaign, he had accumulated at Knoxville eighteen, and at Chattanooga thirteen days' rations for his whole army of 120,000 men. The energy which inspired the railroad agents was communicated to the quarter-masters located at Nashville, and the result was the increase of the laboring force of this department from four or five thousand to nearly sixteen thousand men. During the progress of this work General Sherman required the railroad agents and quarter-masters to report progress daily. I happened to be in his office one morning when assistant quarter-master General James L. Donnalson reported a small increase in the number of cars forwarded on that day over the supply of the day before. General Sherman received the announcement with more evidences of gratification than he would have shown on hearing of a heavy re-enforcement of his numbers, for at this time he had more men than he well knew what to do with. "That's good!" he exclaimed – "that's good, Donnalson; we'll be ready for the start;" and then he hastily resumed his seat, and made a rapid calculation of some sort, which he showed with much apparent delight to Generals Donnalson and Webster, the latter his chief of staff. He could not have been more delighted if he had heard the news of a great victory. A moment afterward he turned to me to deny, in a very gruff way – he was always gruff to newspaper correspondents – my application for a pass over the military railroad to Chattanooga. "You see," he said, "I have as much as I can do to feed my soldiers," with a very ungracious emphasis on the word soldiers. As I had Lieutenant General Grant's pass to any point and by any route in my pocket, and had only submitted the question to General Sherman through deference to him as the immediate commander of the department, I could afford to smile at the slur conveyed in his emphasis, and turned away enriched with a reminiscence, and with increased admiration of the man.

Some former experience with, or, rather, observation of the general, had given me somewhat of the same opinion of his energy and earnestness. When he first assumed command at Louisville, Kentucky, in 1861, the agents of the New York Associated Press throughout the country were employed by the government in transmitting its cipher or secret messages, and correspondence between the various military commanders, by telegraph. In consequence of this arrangement, General Sherman frequented the office of the Louisville agency, in which I was at the time employed. He was always at this office during the evening, often remaining until three o'clock in the morning, when the closing of the office would force him to retire to his rooms at the hotel. During these hours he would pace the floor of the room apparently absorbed in thought, and heedless of all that was going on around him. He would occasionally sit at the table to jot down a memorandum or compose a telegram. He would sometimes stop to listen to any remark addressed to him by other occupants of the room, but would seldom reply, even though the remark had been a direct question, and would appear and act as if the interruption had but momentarily disturbed his train of thought.

In July, 1864, while besieging the enemy's position at Kenesaw Mountain, an incident occurred which may be given as illustrative of Sherman's energy. When the campaign opened he had published an order informing the army, in terms which were laughed at at the time as rather bombastic and slightly egotistical, that "the commanding general intended making the campaign without a tent," and during the greater part of the march his head-quarters actually consisted of nothing more than a tent-fly for the use of his adjutant general. He generally slept under a tree during dry weather, and in very wet weather in any convenient house. When the army was concentrated in the gorge of Snake Creek Gap, in which there was not a house of any character, General Logan "raised the laugh" on Sherman by sending him a tent to protect him from the rain, and which, owing to the terrible state of the weather, Sherman was compelled to use. But the greater part of the campaign was actually passed by Sherman without any other quarters than I have described as for the convenience of his adjutant general. Early one morning a regiment of troops passed his bivouac near Kenesaw Mountain, Georgia, and saw him lying under a tree near the roadside. One of the men, not knowing the general, and supposing him, from his jaded, weary, and generally dilapidated appearance, to be drunk, remarked aloud, "That is the way we are commanded, officered by drunken generals." Sherman heard the remark and instantly arose. "Not drunk, my boy," he said good-humoredly, "but I was up all night looking after your rations, and am very tired and sleepy." He soon after broke up head-quarters, and, passing the same regiment on the march, was received with loud and hearty cheers.

He makes his subordinates work, too, with the same zeal. When the rebels, in evacuating Resaca, succeeded in burning the railroad bridge over the Oostenaula River, he turned to Colonel Wright, his engineer in charge of railroads, and asked him how long it would take him to replace that bridge. Colonel Wright replied after a short calculation, during which Sherman showed his impatience at the delay in the answer, that he could rebuild it in four days.

"Sir," exclaimed the general, hastily, "I give you forty-eight hours, or a position in the front ranks."

The bridge was forthcoming at the proper time.

This nervousness of Sherman's organization has naturally produced a peculiar restlessness of manner and admirable vigor of expression. He talks with great rapidity, often in his haste mingling his sentences in a most surprising manner, and accompanying his conversation by strange, quick, and ungraceful gestures, the most common of which is the knocking of the ashes from his cigar with the little finger of his left hand, frequently knocking at it until ashes and light too are gone.

In a conversation of importance, and particularly on a battle-field, he seldom gives a person time to finish his remarks or reports. He replies as soon as he has heard enough to convey the idea, never waiting its elaboration. In giving his instructions and orders, he will take a person by the shoulder and push him off as he talks, following him to the door, all the time talking and urging him away. His quick, restless manner almost invariably results in the confusion of the person whom he is thus instructing, but Sherman himself never gets confused. At the same time, he never gets composed. Under all circumstances, he is thus restlessly, never timidly nervous. In danger the restlessness is not so visible, and hence it is apparent that there is nothing of timidity in it. On the battle-field where he commands Sherman's nervous manner is toned down. He grates his teeth, and his lips are closed more firmly, giving an expression of greater determination to his countenance. His eyes are somewhat closed, as if endeavoring to see the furthermost limits of the battle-field, and, as it were, peer into the future and see the result. His cigar is always kept firmly between his lips, but he suffers its fire occasionally to die out. He is less restless of body; his arms are more confined to their proper limits; and he is content to stay in one spot. He talks less at such moments than at calmer ones. On light occasions, however, he is invariably ill at ease. His fingers nervously twitch his red whiskers – his coat buttons – play a tattoo on his table or chair, or run through his hair. One moment his legs are crossed, and the next both are on the floor. He sits a moment, and then rises and paces the floor. He must talk, quick, sharp, and yet not harshly, all the time making his odd gestures, which, no less than the intonation of his voice, serve to emphasize his language. He can not bear a clog upon his thoughts nor an interruption to his language. He admits of no opposition. He overrides every thing. He never hesitates at interrupting any one, but can not bear to be interrupted himself. He is very well aware, and candidly admits that his temper is uncommonly bad, and, what is worse, he makes no attempt to control or correct it. In speaking of the late General McPherson, of the Army of Tennessee, he once remarked, "He is as good an officer as I am – is younger, and has a better temper." Grant, once speaking of Sherman's peevishness, said, "Sherman is impetuous and faulty, but he sees his faults as soon as any man." The fact is, if Sherman's faults alone could be given to another, they would serve to distinguish him from the common herd.

The idea generally prevails that commanding generals are very didactic on the battle-field, and give their orders in precise language and stentorian voice. A little familiarity with actual war will soon dispel this false impression, particularly if you meet Sherman on the battle-field, for there is less of dignity, display, and grandiloquence in him than any other general whom I have met during the war. At the battle of Chattanooga he gave his orders for the advance of his troops against the enemy's strongly fortified position to his brother in law, General Hugh Ewing, in the words uttered between two puffs at a bad cigar: "I guess, Ewing, if you are ready, you may as well go ahead." Ewing asked a few questions in regard to retaining the échelon formation of his command as then marshaled for the advance. Sherman replied, "I want you to keep the left well toward the river (the Chickamauga), and keep up the formation four hundred yards distance, until you get to the foot of the hill."

"And shall we keep it after that?" asked Ewing.

"Oh, you may go up the hill as you like," said Sherman; and then he added, sotto voce, with a smile and a wink to his aid, and General Ewing's brother, Charley Ewing, who stood near by, "if you can." As General Ewing was mounting his horse and about to leave, Sherman called out to him,

"I say, Ewing, don't call for help until you actually need it." General Frank Blair, and others of the Army of the Tennessee who were standing near Sherman, laughed at this in such a manner as left the impression on the minds of others, as well as myself, that on some former occasion General Ewing had called for help before General Sherman thought that he really needed it.

It is recorded of Sherman that, on witnessing from the top of a rice-mill on the Ogeechee River the capture of Fort McAllister by General Hazen's forces, and the successful termination by that capture of the "march to the sea," he exclaimed, imitating the voice of a negro, "Dis chile don't sleep dis night," and hurried off to meet General Foster and complete the junction of the two armies.

His nervousness is not less perceptible in his writings than in his conversation and manners. His writings lack in elegance, but not in force. Some of his letters, remarkable for absence of grace and presence of vigor, are already accepted as among the model documents of the war, not only as to style, but as to argument. His speeches, letters, and orders are seldom more than skeletons, framed of sharp, pointed, but disjointed sentences, from which the ideas to be conveyed protrude so prominently as to be comprehensible when the sentence is but half conveyed. His ideas are never elaborated in his letters, though given more fully than in his conversations, but you never have to finish the sentence to discover its meaning. There are several specimens which every reader will naturally think of in this connection. His letter to the rebel General Hood on the proposed depopulation of Atlanta is a curious document, an impromptu reply, thrown off-hand from his pen, and it reads as if it were Sherman talking. He begins this letter by acknowledging the receipt of a communication at the hands of "Messrs. Bull and crew." The bearers, who were designated by this undignified title, were members of the Common Council of Atlanta, for whom Sherman does not appear to have entertained the most profound respect. The letter ends by advising Hood to tell his tale of oppression "to the marines," as he (Sherman) is not to be imposed upon. In the same correspondence he indicates his action in depopulating Atlanta, and gives his peculiar "theory of suppression." Sherman's whole theory, in which, by the way, he has been consistent from the first, is embraced in the proposition to "fight the devil with fire." He was for vigorous war all the time – hard blows at the organized armies, frequent and oft repeated. He has none of the elements of Fabian in him. He writes in defense of the action at Atlanta alluded to: "We must have peace, not only in Atlanta, but in all America. To secure this, we must stop the war that now desolates our once happy and favored country. To stop war, we must defeat the rebel armies that are arrayed against the laws and Constitution, which all must respect and obey. To defeat these armies, we must prepare the way to reach them in their recesses provided with the arms and instruments which enable us to accomplish our purpose." His expression in the same letter, "War is cruelty – you can not refine it," is a sharp, terse rendition of an undisputed truth, to the illustration of which whole chapters have been less successfully devoted by more distinguished writers.

While endeavoring to fill up his dépôts at Chattanooga and Knoxville preparatory to the campaign against Atlanta, Sherman was asked by members of the United States Christian Commission for transportation for their delegates, books, tracts, etc., for the army. His reply is very characteristic of the man: "Certainly not," he wrote; "crackers and oats are more necessary to my army than any moral or religious agency." As this incident shows, Sherman is not a very firm believer in the utility of Christian or Sanitary Commissions, or aid societies generally. He thinks female nurses about a hospital or an army a great nuisance. He once alluded contemptuously to the efforts of a large number of ladies at Louisville, Kentucky, to send clothing, lint, sweetmeats, etc., to his troops, but was induced, in lieu of discouraging their efforts, to take steps to properly direct them. He met the ladies by agreement in one of the public halls at Louisville, now known as Wood's Theatre, and made an address to them. He went among the lambs with all the boldness and dignity of a lion; but the rough, uncouth manner of him who had frowned on thousands of men melted in the presence of a few hundred ladies. They found that, though "he was no orator as Brutus is," he could talk very tenderly of the soldier's wants, very graphically of the soldier's life and sufferings, and very gallantly of woman and her divine mission of soothing and comforting.