Forty-Six Years in the Army - John McAllister Schofield (reading the story of the .TXT) 📗

I had no key, except I knew from internal evidence that it must be under the War Department code, though written in a different key. It was a despatch from Grant, who was then besieging Vicksburg. It had been sent to Memphis by steamer, and thence by telegraph to St. Louis, the place from which Grant's army drew its supplies. A cipher despatch sent under the circumstances from Grant to me, who was not at that time under his command, must necessarily be of great importance. My staff officer at once informed me that it was in some key different from that we had in use. So I took the thing in hand myself, and went to work by the simplest possible process, but one sure to lead to the correct result in time—that is, to make all possible arrangements of the words until one was found that would convey a rational meaning. Commencing about 3 P. M., I reached the desired result at three in the morning. Early that day a steamer was on the way down the river with the supplies Grant wanted. I never told the general how he came to get his supplies so promptly, but I imagined I knew why he had telegraphed to me rather than to the quartermaster whose duty it was to furnish supplies for his army—and a most capable and efficient quartermaster he was. I had only a short time before voluntarily sent General Grant 5000 men, and I inferred that there was some connection between the incidents.

The immense change in the whole military situation which was produced in a few minutes at Franklin (for the contest there was in fact decided in that time, by the recovery of the breach in the line), and that by a battle which had not been contemplated by either General Thomas or myself (that is, on the south side of the Harpeth River, with that stream in the rear of the army), nor yet by General Hood until he saw the apparent opportunity to destroy his adversary; and the fact that that dangerous situation had been produced and the battle rendered necessary by slight accidents or mistakes which might easily have been foreseen or avoided, cannot, it seems to me, but produce in every thoughtful mind some reflection upon the influence exercised by what is called "accident" or "chance" in war. The "fortune of war" was, upon the whole, always in my favor, in spite of adverse accidents; yet I have always acted upon the principle that the highest duty of a commander is to anticipate and provide for every possible contingency of war, so as to eliminate what is called chance.

THE AGGRESSIVE POLICY OF THE SOUTH

Both Johnston and Hood refer in their narratives to the earnest desire of their commander-in-chief, President Davis, that the army they in succession commanded should undertake an aggressive campaign. Johnston demonstrated that, under the circumstances existing while he was in command, such an undertaking could not possibly have been successful. Hood tried it under far more favorable circumstances, and yet he failed, as had every former attempt of the Confederate armies. The result in every case was costly failure, and in the last overwhelming defeat. How much greater would have been the military strength of the South if those losses had been avoided, and how much greater would have been her moral strength if she had maintained from the start a firm, consistent, and humane defensive policy! How long would the conservative people of the North have sustained the "invasion" of States where the people were fighting only to "defend their homes and families." Did not the South throw away a great moral advantage when it waged aggressive war upon the North? No doubt it was necessary at first, from the secession point of view, to "fire the Southern heart" by attacking Fort Sumter. And, also from that point of view, that attack was fully justifiable because that fort was in "Confederate" territory. The invasions of Maryland and Pennsylvania were far different, and much more so were the relentless guerrilla war waged in the border States, attended with horrible massacres like that of Lawrence, Kansas, which, though no one charges them to the government or generals of the South, were unavoidable incidents of that species of warfare; and the inhuman cruelties incidentally suffered by Union prisoners.

It is true that the slavery question was a very powerful factor in our Civil War, and became more and more so as the war progressed. But opinion on that question at the North was very far from unanimous at the first, and it is a fair and important question how far the growth of sentiment in the free States in favor of emancipation was due to the slaveholders' method of carrying on the war.

My desire here is to refer to these questions solely from the military point of view, and for the consideration of military students. The conditions upon which depends success or failure in war are so many,—some of them being more or less obscure,—that careful study of all such conditions is demanded of those who aspire to become military leaders.

[( 1) See Thomas's despatch of 8 P. M., November 29, to Colonel H. C. Wharton, Wilson's staff officer: War Records, Vol. XLV, part I, p. 1146.]

CHAPTER XIII Grant Orders Thomas to Attack Hood or Relinquish the Command— Thomas's Corps Commanders Support Him in Delay—Grant's Intentions in Sending Logan to Relieve Thomas—Change of Plan before the Battle of Nashville—The Fighting of December 15—Expectation that Hood would Retreat—Delay in Renewing the Attack on the 16th—Hopelessness of Hood's Position—Letters to Grant and Sherman—Transferred to the East—Financial Burden of the War—Thomas's Attitude toward the War.

The perilous character of the situation in Tennessee, in which it was left by Sherman's premature start for the sea and Thomas's tardy concentration of troops, wholly disappeared with the repulse of Hood at Franklin. There was no further obstacle to the concentration of Thomas's forces at Nashville, the organization and equipment of his army, and the necessary preparations to assume the offensive. Hood's army was too much shattered and crippled to make any serious movement for some days, during which it was easy for Thomas to prepare for battle all his troops except the cavalry, of which latter, however, it required a longer time to complete the remount. Indeed, Thomas could have given battle the second or third day after Franklin with more than a fair prospect of success.

Considering the feeling of nervous anxiety which prevailed in Washington and throughout the country at the time, possibly he ought to have assumed the offensive on the 2d or 3d of December. But that state of anxiety was at first unknown at Nashville, even to General Thomas, and was never fully appreciated or understood. No one at Nashville, so far as I am aware, shared that feeling. We knew, or thought we knew, that Hood could do nothing, unless it were to retreat, before we would be prepared to meet him, and that every day's delay strengthened us far more that it possibly could him. His operations, which were closely watched every day, indicated no intention to retreat; hence all at Nashville awaited with confidence the period of complete preparation which was to give us the decisive victory.

THOMAS TO ATTACK HOOD OR RELINQUISH THE COMMAND

The anxiety felt elsewhere, especially by General Grant, was probably due to some doubt of the wisdom of Sherman's plan of going off with his main army before disposing of Hood, contrary to Grant's first advice; to the discovery of Sherman's error in supposing he had left Thomas in complete condition to cope with Hood; to some misapprehension as to the degree in which the situation in Tennessee had been changed by the battle of Franklin; as well as to lack of confidence in General Thomas on account of his well-known deliberation of thought and action.

Little was known of this state of anxiety by me, or, I believe, by the corps commanders, until December 9, when General Thomas, calling us together at his headquarters, informed us that he was ordered to attack Hood at once or surrender his command (not saying to whom), and asked our advice as to what he ought to do. One of the officers present asked General Thomas to show us the order, which he declined to do. This confirmed the belief which I had at first formed that the successor named by General Grant could be no other than myself—a belief formed from the fact that I was, next to General Thomas, the highest officer in rank on the ground where immediate action was demanded, and from my knowledge of General Grant's confidence, which belief has since been fully justified by the record. This, as I conceived, imposed upon me the duty of responding at once to General Thomas's request for advice, without waiting for the junior members of the council, according to the usual military custom. Hence I immediately replied: "General Thomas, I will sustain you in your determination not to fight until you are fully ready." All the other commanders then promptly expressed their concurrence.

I do not know whether or not my declaration of purpose to sustain General Thomas was made known to General Grant, or to any one in Washington, either then or afterward. I have never made any inquiry on that subject. Of course such information must have been conveyed confidentially and indirectly, if at all, and hence would probably not appear in the official records, though despatches and letters marked "confidential" are sometimes published as official. I have only conjectured that some knowledge of my opinion and decision may, perhaps, have influenced General Grant's final determination to go to Nashville himself. If some officer must go there to fight a battle, Grant could get there about as soon as any other he could well select. The records now published seem to verify the belief then (December 9, 1864) existing in my mind, that I had only to withhold my support from General Thomas in his determination to delay, and the chief command would have fallen to my fortune, where I believed brilliant victory was as nearly certain as anything in war can be. But I never had the remotest idea of superseding General Thomas. As I explained to General Sherman, I volunteered to go back to Tennessee, not to supersede Thomas, but to help him. I knew him and his subordinates well, as I did also the antagonist, my West Point classmate, whom they would have to meet. I appreciated Thomas's high qualities, his distinguished services, and, above all, the profound affection and confidence of his troops—an element of strength in a commander far greater than is generally understood, even by military men, some of whom appear to be altogether ignorant of its value as a factor in war. A doubt of our complete success under his leadership, after our troops were united, never entered my mind, much less a desire to diminish or dim the laurels he might win.

GRANT'S INTENTION IN SENDING LOGAN

General Grant's great anxiety on account of the situation at Nashville was manifested for several days by urgent despatches to General Thomas to attack at once without waiting for further preparations; then by an order to Thomas to turn over the chief command to me, Thomas to become subordinate, which order was suspended; and finally by starting for Nashville himself to direct operations in person. In the meantime he ordered General John A. Logan to go to Nashville to relieve Thomas in command of the Army of the Cumberland, without thought, as he has said, of the question whether Logan or myself should command the combined armies of the Cumberland and of the Ohio. Grant had reached Washington from City Point, and Logan had gone as far as Louisville, when the report of Thomas's victory of December 15 made it unnecessary for either of them to proceed farther. The following letters from Grant to Logan are interesting as explaining the