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CHAPTER IV.

THE SOLDIER.

THE fruits of the great Union victory at Pittsburg Landing, April 7, 1862, were first, the recovery of the Mississippi river to its mouth; second, the separation of the Trans-Mississippi States of the Confederacy, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas, from the States eastward of the river. These fruits were lost by the inaction that followed the victory, and by dividing the magnificent army gathered at and around Corinth into detachments, and scattering them aimlessly up and down the country.

The disappointment to the loyal people of the West consequent upon the failure to realize something commensurate with the success was intensely bitter. At length General Buell was ordered to march the Army of the Ohio to Chattanooga, and hold it for some succeeding operation all unknown except to General Halleck, chief commander of the army, and there have been great suspicions that on that ulterior point even he was not fully made up in mind.

There can be little question that General Buell could have established himself in Chattanooga if

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he had been allowed to proceed as he wished, by a direct march along a route north of the Tennessee river, drawing supplies from Nashville. Instead of that he was peremptorily required to follow the line of the Memphis & Charleston Railroad from Corinth to Decatur, repairing it as he went. It resulted that General Bragg was able to concentrate a new army at Chattanooga before Buell could reach it, whereupon the latter was speedily put upon the defensive. Then began the celebrated race on parallel lines between the generals, in the course of which Buell was severely taxed to save Nashville first and then Louisville. The news spread through Ohio and Indiana that the Confederates were in Kentucky in force, with the advantage of the interior line for their operations. The consternation was prodigious.

President Lincoln had recently issued another proclamation calling for troops. So great was the public depression, however, that Governor Morton found difficulty in filling the quota due from Indiana; but, keenly alive to the dangers of the situation, he made appeals everywhere and to everybody to assist in the work. No one was so dull of military perception as not to see that Indiana and Ohio were threatened by Bragg. A battle lost in Kentucky would make it easy for that chief to carry his army across the Ohio at his pleasure.

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One day, when the gloom of the public was deepest, Harrison, in company with a friend, called Governor Morton. The visitors found him pacing the floor of the reception room of the executive office in a frame of mind fairly reflective of the general feeling. When the business which had brought them was concluded the Governor took them into his inner room on the first floor on the east side of the old State House, where they stood with him looking out of a window. A number of workmen were in fair view engaged in the erection of what is now known as the Gallup Building on Tennessee street. After a brief silence, Morton remarked that he was quite discouraged; that the President's call for more troops had been out for some time, and met no ready response; that the people were slow in waking up to the exigency of the moment, and, pointing to some men cutting stone on the other side of the street, he said: "The people are following their own private business, so that it has come to be a serious question what I shall do next to arouse them." He spoke with a great deal of depression, and in such a manner that Harrison felt he was addressing himself personally to him. So he replied: "Governor, if I can be of any service, I will go.'

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Well," the other replied at once, "you can raise a regiment in this Congressional district right away; but it is asking too much of you to go

into the field with it; you have just been elected Reporter of the Supreme Court. But But go to work and raise it, and we will find somebody to command it."

Harrison answered that that did not suit him; if he made any speeches, and asked men to go, he proposed to go along with them, and stay as long as any of them did, if he lived that long. He said emphatically that he did not intend to recruit others and stay at home himself.

The Governor remarked: " Very well; if you want to go, you can command the regiment."

"I do not know," Harrison replied, “as I want to command the regiment. I do not know anything about military tactics. So, if you can find some suitable person of experience in such matters, I am not at all anxious to take the command."

The result was that at the end of the interview Harrison went up street, and on the way, without going home, stepped into a hat store and bought a military cap. Without the loss of a moment he then engaged a fifer and drummer, returned to his office, threw a flag out of the window, and began recruiting for Company A.

The company was speedily full and put into camp in the western part of the city. The new soldiers lay there, and drilled as they had opportunity. Harrison employed a drill-master in Chicago for them, paying the hire himself. There

they remained about a month. In the meantime he was given a commission as Second Lieutenant. Frequently, when the drill was over, he went out and made speeches in aid of other gentlemen engaged in raising companies. When the regiment was complete Governor Morton voluntarily commissioned him Colonel.

The military authorities were concentrating troops about that time in Louisville to meet Kirby Smith, who had passed through Cumberland Gap and was making way northward through New London to Lexington. The rawness of Colonel Harrison's companies can well be imagined; muskets had just been issued to them, and they did not know how to handle them. But the excitement was heightened by the circumstance that General Bragg was hastening with the main body of his army to Louisville, having turned Nashville, to which General Buell had marched to save the immense stores of supplies there collected. The rebel general was in fact north of Nashville, so that Bowling Green, which was at that time fortified, had become a Union outpost, below which everything had been broken by the Confederates. Thither Harrison's 70th Regiment

Indiana Volunteers was hurried.

Buell's army, in pursuit of Bragg, marched past Bowling Green, and the regiment was still there when the battle of Perryville was fought, having been brigaded temporarily under General Du

mont.

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