History of Morgan's Cavalry
TextThe gallantry and patriotism of the Mississippians are as bright as the light of day; and yet, in September, 1861, thousands of young Mississippians who afterward bled for the cause, were at home dealing out fiery denunciations against slaveholding States which would not secede. The same history is true of every other seceding State – States, unlike Kentucky, already embarked in and committed to the war. It was not because the men of these States lacked purpose – throngs of them who stayed at home until the news of our first disasters came, then enlisted, and fought and died with the quenchless valor which had descended to them from unconquered sires, and was traditional in a race which had believed itself invincible. It was because they knew little of war at all, and were utterly ignorant of the kind of war that was coming. The mighty conviction had not yet forced itself upon them. It is true that the Confederate Government had refused regiments raised and tendered by these States some time previously. Unable to arm them, it dismissed them, instead of placing them in camps of instruction until arms could be procured.
If, among the many errors which have been attributed to the great patriot, hero and statesman who was at the head of that Government, there was one really grave and fatal in its consequences, it was that he himself failed to appreciate the danger, failed to comprehend the magnitude of the struggle when it began, and failed therefore to arouse his people to an early and tremendous exertion, which might have triumphed. The absolute confidence of the Government blinded the people, and its policy tended rather to quiet, than to excite their enthusiasm. But whatever may have been the causes, it was for General Johnson to consider the effect. If, after the war had lasted four months, his immense department, composed of seceded States, could furnish him only six thousand troops, when he advanced to Bowlinggreen, with what show of reason could he count on obtaining from Kentucky – Kentucky that had not yet seceded, that was divided, distracted by conflicting opinions – the vast concourse of recruits, which so many professed to expect her to furnish, and which she was so indignantly denounced for not furnishing?
Could General Johnson have occupied Northern Kentucky without opposition, and have held it undisturbed for some months, it is highly probable that all dissensions would have been allayed, that the revolutionary fever would have spread through Kentucky (perhaps it might even have been propagated north of the Ohio), and thousands of Kentuckians would have joined the Confederate army, many of whom were subsequently its most formidable foes. But it must be remembered that the Federal Government had not been idle, that the North was on fire with the war spirit, that a host of sturdy volunteers had been gathered and organized for the special purpose of holding Kentucky, that, with the abundant means at its command, the Federal Government had already efficiently armed its soldiers, and provided all that was necessary for active and immediate service.
In forty-eight hours after Louisville had fallen, certainly before he could have brought up the forces to dispute its entrance at any point, an army from the North, vastly stronger than General Johnson's, could have been thrown into Kentucky. Could General Johnson have defeated this army? If defeated himself in such a situation, what would have been the consequences, not only to his hopes of revolutionizing Kentucky, not only to the army immediately under his command, but to the Confederate cause in the West? Would he, then, have been warranted in risking so much upon this throw? If General Johnson had been constrained to fight at once, and had been driven back, he would have sustained a disaster, perhaps fatal. The effect it would have had in Kentucky can easily be understood, and it would have had some and not a very cheering effect in more Southern latitudes. The patriotism and integrity of the mass of the people is undeniable, but for all that, "there is a great deal of human nature in man." Success is the most eloquent of arguments. He who appeals to the suffrages of an enlightened community after a victory will be better received then he who canvasses after a defeat. Again (it is a truth that will bear repetition) in revolutions, popular convulsions, political agitations – a method may be safely attempted which will be hazardous and of doubtful policy after actual war has commenced. In the former periods, enthusiasm runs higher, patriotism is more reckless and demonstrative than when the bayonets are about. The danger then is distant, and with the majority of men, when a general excitement is prevailing, the remote danger excites no fear. Many a patriot is willing to be Brigadier General of the peaceful militia, and to devote himself to a cause, from the stump, who would feel a strong and very natural reluctance to leave home, wife, children and property, to accept the hardships of a soldier's life, and be shot at whenever his officers feel enterprising.
If the sentiment of the people be not unanimous and very decided, the secret of success in revolutions is to captivate the popular fancy, give the first direction to the popular current. It is a struggle between the leaders, and the most audacious, not to say the least scrupulous, are apt to win.
It is unsafe, in such periods, to rely surely upon any sort of action from the people – it would be the mistake of supposing that every man, unshaken by any influence, had made up his mind, and knew what he was going to do, and that the majority by some instinct, would be immediately obeyed. A brave, honest, intelligent people will be likely, once convinced and committed, to abide gallantly by their decision. If their education has been wholesome, and their traditions unique, they will be stimulated by ordinary perils and disasters to increased energy and exertions.
But whether the revolutionary fermentation be in process, or the stand has been taken – it is easier to induce the masses of a people to vote for resolutions than to become soldiers.
It doubtless would have proven a successful policy, to have pushed Buckner instantly to Louisville, and Zollicoffer to Lexington, to stay as long as they were safe, and return with the recruits and the supplies that they could have collected, leaving behind them the positive assurance that the country was not inaccessible to Confederate troops. But to have taken the army into Northern Kentucky, upon the supposition that the unarmed population would arise and enable it to remain there – in the face of the threatening dangers and the almost positive certainty of instant battle – would have been a blind, unreasoning daring, which had no place among the qualities of General Johnson. The wisdom and prescience of the great commander were afterward so abundantly demonstrated, that we may be pardoned for believing his judgment right in this instance also.
In establishing his base at Bowlinggreen, he secured, as has been shown, a line well adapted to enable him to assume the offensive so soon as his army was sufficiently strong to do so with effect. The very fact of his moving into Kentucky at all was a pledge and guarantee to the people of his department, that, if sustained by them, he would keep the war out of their territory, and encouraged his army to hope for an active, dashing campaign. He placed himself where the more enterprising and determined of the Kentucky rebels could join him, and he spared no effort, no appeal, which could stimulate enlistment in his army among the young men of Kentucky, or of the States of his department.
That his appeals were neglected was not only his, but the Confederacy's deadly misfortune. Numerical weakness frustrated in September 1861, his plan to appear before the people, not only of Northern Kentucky, but of the Northwestern States, as the victor of a decisive battle, and, in the following February, forced him to retreat from Kentucky altogether. The first and most golden opportunity was lost; and the future history of the war in the West, was a series of terrible reverses to the Confederate arms, or of victories brilliant indeed, but, in the end, fruitless.
The condition of the Confederate troops was far better, in many respects, at this time, than at any subsequent period of the war.
There were, then, facilities and means for providing them with necessaries and comforts which more latterly did not exist. Provisions were abundant everywhere, and were regularly supplied.
The railroads, which were then, all in good repair and well provided with rolling stock, afforded sure means of supplying the troops which were stationed in those parts of the country through which they ran. The numerous navigable streams also afforded facilities, and practically shortened the routes of supply.
In all cases, however, in which neither the railways nor the rivers could be used to supply them, troops were compelled to depend for subsistence, in a great measure, upon the country immediately about their cantonments, and as they exhausted the surplus provisions in different neighborhoods, they would shift their encampments. This was owing to the great lack of wheel transportation. It was very difficult to procure wagons, except by purchase or impressment from the citizens, and those so gotten were of course inferior. Much less inconvenience was subsequently experienced on this score, after they began to be manufactured in the Confederate and were captured in great numbers from the enemy. At this time, many articles such as sugar, coffee, etc., indispensable to the comfort and conducive to the health of troops in the field, were plentifully furnished – after the first year of the war they were known among us only by camp-fire traditions. The men rarely suffered, then, from the want of clothing, blankets, shoes, etc., even when the quartermasters could not furnish them, for they could obtain them from home, or purchase them, wherever they happened to be quartered, at reasonable prices. There was, perhaps, no regiment in the army which had not its full complement of tents; they were manufactured at Memphis, and other points, in numbers adequate to the wants of all the troops.
Cooking utensils, also, could be had in abundance – the marching commands suffered, not from the want of them, but from the lack of transportation for them. It is true that those which were furnished us were not of the kind and pattern which experience has prescribed as most fitting for military use, but they were capital substitutes for flat stones and forked twigs.
In the medical department there was an almost total lack of the necessary material. The supply of medicines in the South at the outbreak of the war was barely sufficient for the wants of the population at that time. Some medicines were run through the blockade from the North, in small quantities, during the spring and summer of 1861. But the supply thus obtained by no means met the demand. The volunteers collected together in camps and crowded cantonments, subjected to a sudden change of diet and mode of living, sickened in great numbers. Diseases which had never before, or but in rare instances, proven dangerous, now assumed alarming types. The systems of the patients may have been relaxed and their vitality partially impaired, during the early period of camp life, when they were just foregoing their old habits and were not yet hardened to the new, or it may be that when men are congregated in great numbers, certain diseases, by transmission from one to another, may be cultivated into extraordinary malignancy – at any rate a large proportion of the inmates of every camp sickened and many died. At Bowlinggreen in the winter of 1861 and 1862, the mortality was dreadful, measles, typhoid fever, pneumonia and diseases of the bowels, carried off a host of victims – every sickness, however, seemed fatal at that time.
There was, consequently, a great and constantly increasing need of medicines; and, perhaps, some waste of them, when they were collected in large quantities and shipped from point to point, was unavoidable. But all these problems, all the difficulties of properly supplying the army, began to be solved and modified, as the genius of adaptation and substitution was developed among the troops themselves. If a man could not get a blanket, he made an old carpet, cut to the proper size and lined on one side with a piece of strong cotton cloth, serve him instead. The soldier who lacked shoes bid defiance to the rough roads, or the weather, in a pair of ox-hide buskins, or with complicated wrappings of rags about his feet. I have known more than one orderly sergeant make out his morning report upon a shingle, and the surgeon who lacked a tourniquet used a twisted handkerchief. Of the most necessary military material, arms and ordnance stores, there was the greatest scarcity. Perhaps one half of the entire western army (of all the troops in the department) were armed (at the time that General Johnson came) with shot-guns and squirrel rifles, and the majority of the other half with scarcely as serviceable flint-lock muskets.
The troops under General Bragg at Pensacola were perhaps better armed, but the rule held good with regard to the others. A few companies composed of young men from the cities, and of rich planters, were armed with fancy guns, Maynard rifles, etc., altogether unsuitable for the armament of infantry. In September of 1861, there were probably not one thousand Springfield and Enfield rifles in the army which General Johnson was trying to concentrate in Kentucky, and it was several months later before these unequaled weapons (the right arms for soldiers who mean to fight) could be supplied in numbers at all adequate to the need of them. In the advance to Bowlinggreen, more than three hundred able-bodied men of the Second Kentucky, and an equal, if not greater number of the Third Kentucky were left in the rear because arms could not be gotten for them. In November one or two regiments of the Kentucky brigade were given the Belgian in place of the flint-lock musket, and in December flint-lock guns, altered to percussion locks, were given the other regiments of the brigade. Proper accouterments were as scarce as guns. Cartridge-boxes, knapsacks, canteens, when they could be gotten at all, were very inferior. By great industry and effort, a considerable quantity of ammunition had been prepared and worked up into cartridges, but there was such a scarcity of lead and powder in the South, and such inferior facilities for the manufacture of the latter, that apprehension was felt lest, when the supply on hand was exhausted, it could not be replaced.
There was scarcely a percussion cap to be had (in the early part of the war) in the department, with the exception of some that were manufactured by an enterprising citizen of Nashville, and zealous Confederate, Mr. S.D. Morgan, an uncle of the General. But while so few of the Confederate soldiers were efficiently armed, almost every man of them, presuming that the Yankees were to be whipped in rough and tumble style, had his bowie-knife and revolver. The Arkansas and Texas troops, especially, carried enormous knives, that might have made a Malay's blood run cold, but in the end those huge weapons did duty far oftener as cleavers than as bayonets. The organization of the troops first put in the field was, of course, to some extent, imperfect. A good deal has been said about the evils of the system of electing officers, and much just censure has been passed upon it. It has been claimed that it gives rise to a laxity of discipline, and a disposition on the part of officers, who owe their positions to the suffrages of the men they command, to wink at irregularities and pardon gross neglect of duty.
This is undoubtedly true, in a great measure, and what is stranger, but equally as true, is the fact that troops which have been longest in the service, which know best what qualities are necessary to constitute a good officer, which appreciate perfectly the necessity of having good officers, not only to their efficiency and success in the field, but to their well-being at all times – just such troops seem least able to resist the temptation of electing some good-natured fellow, whom they will never respect, and will, perhaps, grow ashamed of, rather than men who will enforce their obedience, but promote alike their efficiency and their comfort. At all times they will look to and rely upon the good officer, but when they come to elect, the love of doing as they please, unchecked by the irksome restraints of discipline, is apt to make them vote for the man who will indulge them. But I believe that all those who observed these matters carefully will agree, that there was far less of this sort of feeling among the men who volunteered at the outbreak of the war than there was later.
The officers elected by the regiments first raised were, generally, about the best men that could have been selected. The men, at that time, in good faith, chose those they believed best qualified for the duties of command, and elected individuals who had manifested, or were thought to possess, courage, energy, and good sense. Of course some mistakes were made, and experience disclosed the fact, now well-established, that many men who figured respectably in times of peace, are unfitted for military responsibility, and weaken in the ordeal of military life.
No opportunity had been afforded then, for testing and discovering those qualified for positions of trust and importance – it was all a matter of experiment. Many injudicious selections were made, but it quite as often happened that the appointing system (as it was exercised at the beginning of the war) gave incompetent officers to the army. The graduates of West Point themselves, and even those officers who had served for years in the "Old Army," knew little or nothing of actual war. Their studies at the academy, and the reading appropriate to their profession, had instructed them in the theory of war.
They had the knowledge which the routine of camp and garrison duty teaches. Most of them had seen service in expeditions against the Indians on the Western plains. Some of them had served with distinction and benefit to themselves in Mexico, but this was an experience which they shared with many civilians. They had soldierly habits. They were well acquainted with, and knew the importance of the military etiquette and ceremonial so conducive to proper subordination and discipline, and without which neither can be maintained in an army. But beyond the necessity (permanently impressed upon them, and rendered a constant influence with them by long training and habit) of strictly obeying all the rules of discipline themselves, and of exacting the same obedience from others, they knew nothing which a quick mind, if endowed with a natural military aptitude and appreciation of military essentials, can not readily acquire. While the regulations prescribed clear and excellent rules of organization, the strictest conformity was not always had to them, and it was sometimes difficult to strictly apply them. Companies sometimes overran the maximum in a way that rendered them as embarrassing to the regiments in which they were placed, as they were painfully unwieldy to the unlearned Captains and Lieutenants who immediately commanded them.
When it was known that a very popular man was recruiting, the number of enlistments in his company was limited only by the number of able bodied men in his district who were inclined to enlist. As each volunteer had the right to select his Captain and company, and generally objected very decidedly to being transferred to any other, it was a delicate and difficult task to reduce these over-grown companies to proper proportions. Regiments frequently, on account of the popularity of their Colonels, or from other causes, swelled out of due bounds also. I knew one regiment, which in the early part of September, 1861, had in it seventeen companies and numbered, when all answered to roll call, more than two thousand men. There was at this time a very favorite, and very anomalous organization, known as the "Legion," which fortunately in a few months entirely disappeared. It was something between a regiment and a brigade, with all of a hybrid's vague awkwardness of conformation. It was the general supposition, too, for little was ever definitely known about it, that it was to be somewhat of an independent corps, something like the "Partisan Ranger" regiment of later date. When the army was in the first process of organization, these "Legions" could be heard of everywhere.
The idea doubtless originated with some officer who felt that he deserved a higher grade than that of Colonel, and could not obtain a Brigadier's commission.
As organization went on, and system prevailed, the "Legions," perhaps according to the merit of their commanders, or their numerical strength, sank into companies, were regularly organized as regiments, or were elevated into brigades. The brigades were from three to seven or eight thousand strong, and all arms of the service were represented in them; they included regiments of infantry and cavalry and batteries of artillery. It was in a measure necessary that this organization should be adopted, from the fact that for some months, each brigade commander was entrusted with supervision and defense of a large tract of territory, and it was impossible to dispense with either of the three arms. Divisions were not organized until late in the fall of 1861 – the strength of the brigades was then, to some extent, equalized by the reduction of the larger ones; Army Corps were of still later creation.
A significant custom prevailed of denoting the companies of the first regiments which were raised, not by letter, but by some company denomination which they had borne in the militia organization, or had assumed as soon as mustered as an indispensable nom-de-guerre. They seemed to vie with each other in inventing titles of thrilling interest: "The Yellow Jackets," "The Dead Shots," "The Earthquakes," "The Chickasaha Desperadoes," "The Hell-roarers," are a few which made the newspapers of that day, in recording their movements, read like the pages of popular romance. So fondly did the professors of these appellations cling to them, that it was found almost as difficult to compel their exchange for the proper designations, as to effect far more harassing and laborious reforms. The spirit which prompted these particular organizations to adopt this method of distinguishing and identifying themselves, remained to the last characteristic of the Southern troops. Regiments, especially in the cavalry service, were quite as often styled by the names of their commanders, as by the numbers which they properly bore, and, if the commanders were popular, the former method was always the most agreeable.
In the latter part of the war, after every effort had been made to do away with this feeling, it was at length adjudged expedient to enjoin such a designation of brigades, by the names of their commanders, by order from the War Department. This peculiar affectation was but one form in which the temper of the Southern people was manifested – a temper which revolted against complete loss of individuality, and was prone to self-assertion. It is a temper which ought to be characteristic of a free and high spirited people, which, while for prudential reasons it will consent to severe restraints, seeks to mark the fact that the restraint is self-imposed. Few will doubt, upon reflection, that this feeling could have been turned to better account in the Southern army; that to have allowed commands to win distinctive and honorable appellations by extraordinary bravery would have elevated the standard of morale, as much as did promotion for personal gallantry and good conduct. The excellence of a command mentioned in general orders might be only partially known, but the fame conferred by the title of the "Stonewall Brigade" is universal. For the first year, there was, in the true sense of the word, no discipline in the Western army at all. The good sense and strong feeling of duty which pervaded the entire soldiery made them obedient, zealous, and tolerably patient. High courage and natural resolution made them fight well from the first, and, long exposure to the storms of battle taught them coolness in the midst of danger, and the comparative indifference to it, which become habitual with the veteran, and which are usually confounded with the effects of discipline, although they frequently exist where discipline has never obtained. A spirit of emulation induced them to readily learn the drill and all the more ostentatious duties of the soldier. A fortitude which, until they were put to the test, they were not themselves aware of, enabled them to endure without diminution of spirit, great hardship and privation. Pride and patriotism, in the midst of every suffering and temptation, kept them true and patient to the last. While all these influences combined to make excellent soldiers of the material of which that army was composed, it will be nearer the truth to say, that there was, in the true sense of the word, no discipline in the Western army, not only in the first year of the war, but at any time during the War. The rigid method introduced by General Bragg undoubtedly told with good effect upon the men of least pride and mettle, and kept all such men nearer the mark, but for the rest, Bragg's discipline improved the army rather by its operations upon the officers than upon the men.
No man who has intimately known the Southern soldiery can escape the conviction, that, while capable of acquiring any degree of instruction, and, if the word may be used, veteranship, they can not really be disciplined, that is, be converted, by the infliction and fear of punishment, into unreasoning machines. If there were no other proof of this, the reflection which was invariably shed upon the morale and tone of every command by the personal character, prowess and skill of its particular leader, would be sufficient proof of it, and the fact that the Southern troops almost always read their chances of success or defeat, not in the odds opposed to them, but in the reputation and character of their commander – it would be as wide of the truth to call this discipline, as it would be to speak of the perfect discipline of the Norman knights, who would insult a cowardly and indolent Prince upon his throne, and would, yet, obey with "proud humility" an heroic adventurer.
While no practical soldier will underrate the value of discipline and the marvels it works – still the experience of the late war will make many officers believe that it is no match for native intelligence, zeal, and pride – when those qualities have become trained and used to the requirements of war. Instruction and skill in military duties, are indispensable, although discipline is not always so. Give the high strung young soldier who has brains and good blood, some practice and knowledge of actual warfare, and the unthinking automaton, formed by routine and punishment, can no more stand before him than a tree can resist the stroke of the lightning, than the book general and paper tactician can resist the genius which throws his plans out of gear, and his mind into convulsions.
It will be well for those who read Southern histories of the war to keep in mind that the writers mean, when they use the word "discipline," the pride which stimulated the soldiers to learn their duties rather than incur disgrace, and the subordination which proceeded from self respect, and respect for an officer whom they thought worthy to command them. It was not the fault of the Southern men who took the field, that the efforts of the Southern people failed to establish, for themselves, a separate and independent Government.
Two great mistakes were made at the outset and were never retrieved. Mistakes which have lost battles and campaigns innumerable, and in this instance lost a war. The vigor and irresistible audacity which is gained by "taking the start" was lost to us by the defensive policy, and our troops were scattered so widely that even an energetic defense could nowhere be made, except in Virginia. The Government did not mass the troops for attack upon vulnerable points in the enemy's territory, nor to fall upon some one of his invading columns. Not only was the defensive strictly maintained, but an effort was made to defend every inch of the border. In the face of superior forces concentrating for invasion at certain points, a skirmish line, which employed all of our forces, was thrown out to hold all points from Richmond to the Western prairies.
But one original and cardinal error gave birth to all the others. The Confederate Government failed to invoke the only spirit which could have done its bidding. It ought, with out delay, to have stimulated the ardor and turned loose the tremendous energies of revolution, and have made the people drunken with its inspiration. The time was propitious, the Government was just established and was popular, the people were, practically, unanimous, and were irretrievably committed to the movement – they had never seen hostile troops or been daunted by the sights of war. The presence of formidable armed foes might have aroused prudence, but when Sumpter fell and war became inevitable, there were no armies in the field on either side. When the first gun boomed, the Government ought to have taken advantage of the glow of enthusiasm which was as yet unchilled by any fear of the yet distant danger. It ought to have asked for powers which the people in their, then, thorough confidence in their leaders would have readily granted. They felt, that if the struggle was really for important principles and vital rights, it was better to make rulers of their own choice, omnipotent for a short time, than to run the risk of defeat which would cause them entire, and, perhaps eternal, loss of liberty. The leaders knew that the temper of the people could be relied on – that if frankly told that success could be achieved only by prompt and enormous efforts and sacrifices – the efforts and sacrifices would be made. They were made later, when instead of universal hope and enthusiasm, there prevailed a feeling of almost despair. The strategy of revolution is identical, in principle, with that of war – the side which masses and marches fast wins. If, while it was yet a contest of peoples and not yet a conflict of armies, the entire white population of the South had been aroused, her territory converted into one vast camp, every male citizen between the ages of sixteen and sixty made a soldier, leaving to the President the power of exempting certain classes, and not regulating by law a matter so essentially discretionary, and every dollar's worth of property had been pledged to the cause, how different might have been the result? All this could have been done in the then condition of public sentiment; not a dissentient voice would have been heard. It would have been far more popular than the "Conscript Act" was a year later, and that caused little complaint.