The East Tennessee Campaign, Continued

Our position was now becoming serious. Some additional troops under Ransom would soon join us, but the enemy was being heavily reinforced. Grant had decided to drive us out of East Tennessee. A letter from him to Burnside by courier was captured, advising him of three columns en route for his relief—one on south side by General Sherman, one by Dechared under General Elliott, and one by Cumberland Gap under General Foster. Longstreet decided to march past Knoxville on the north side of the river and aim for the column reported coming from Cumberland Gap. The enemy did not see fit to molest our flank as we marched past his defenses on the 2d of December.

There was good foraging in the country, and we halted at Rogersville on the 9th to accumulate supplies. Up to this date it had not been our General's intention to stay in the Tennessee Valley. He was looking eastward, but more hopefully toward some combinations and increase of force by which a powerful demonstration could be made into Kentucky through Cumberland Gap. But at Rogersville the foraging officers brought in roseate reports of plenty in the land. It appeared to be overflowing with subsistence for any army; cattle, swine, corn, sorghum, and honey were abundant, and it was decided we should winter in these beautiful valleys, watered by the Holston, the French Broad, the mouth of Chucky and Nolachucky. Truly was it a fertile and smiling land to be still showing all this abundance, ravaged and harried as it had been alternately by Union and Confederate forces, and with such a population! It could well be said that "Only man was vile."

General Longstreet in his book, "Manassas to Appomattox," has written up his movements from the time he left Bragg to that of leaving Tennessee, at great length and with extreme particularity. Its recital had apparently occupied him more than any part of the four years' war. We may therefore well leave these details; they are correctly stated, although without the interest of a successful campaign. We turn therefore to matters more general, but perhaps attractive, of our doings in that country.

There was occasional skirmishing and outpost fighting, but nothing of importance. At the affair of Bean's Station we expected to accomplish something, but little came of it. Gradually a good force had been assembled at scattered points under Longstreet's orders, and he was most confident and eager for an opportunity to deal the enemy a blow. President Davis, on December 10th, gave him discretionary authority over all the troops in the department, and on this he held, for the present, Martin's cavalry by him, that Bragg had called for. It was positively necessary for holding East Tennessee, which seemed the best possible use to make of the troops while Bragg's army was in a state of demoralization and uncertainty.

Indeed, in the published annals there is appearance of intense uneasiness by Halleck and Mr. Lincoln as to Longstreet's presence in Tennessee. The emphatic tone of many letters and orders from the Federal capital was that we should, under any circumstances and apparently at any sacrifices, be driven out. Our presence there took the form of a political peril. As long as we had a good foothold and a good army in reach of Cumberland Gap there was the chance of a successful movement into Kentucky, and once there that State would have been in an unpleasant and dangerous attitude to the Federals. Its Confederate sentiments were in parts still strong and shared by large numbers of the population. Longstreet's correspondence always took a squint at such an eventuality, and nothing would have better pleased him than to lead such a movement. But the winter coming on sharp, we found camps in the great forest about Morristown before Christmas and began collection of food supplies in earnest.

The men were happy and cheerful, but awfully in want of clothing and shoes. Some of the latter were made by themselves, but this supply could not go far. I recall a movement against General Granger at Dandridge when the corps turned out to march. It was bitter winter weather, the ground hard and sharp with ice, and not less than 2,000 of our little army were without shoes. Their bleeding feet left marks at every step.

They were useless for the work and quickly sent back to camp. Not long after, however, all were made happy by a shipment of three thousand pairs of shoes by General Lawton, our Quartermaster-General. He had listened to our earnest, almost desperate appeals.

About the middle of December, Major-General McLaws was relieved from command of his division by Lieutenant-General Longstreet and ordered to Augusta, Georgia. Part of the correspondence concerning this matter will be found in the Appendix, sufficiently explanatory. The commanding General had for some time been dissatisfied with his second in command. Later on, at Greenville, McLaws had the court of inquiry for which he at once applied. The charges were three in number, principally alleging neglect and want of preparation at Knoxville, supported each by one specification. The court absolved McLaws from all fault, but found him guilty on one of the specifications. The proceedings went to the President, who immediately disapproved them, restored McLaws to duty, and assigned him to a command in Georgia.

General E. M. Law handed in his resignation and asked leave of absence on it—this about December 20th. It was cheerfully granted, and then General Law asked the privilege of taking the resignation himself to Richmond. It was unusual, but was allowed. From this afterwards grew serious complications, involving Law's arrest by Longstreet, his support by the Executive, and Longstreet's threat of resignation from the army, in which he was upheld by General Lee. And the Lieutenant-General had his way. Law was not again in Longstreet's command.

The cold was intense, the record showing the lowest temperature for many years. During the last days of 1863 the glass went down to zero and the entire army was quiet in the effort to keep warm.

Fortunately there was fuel in abundance. The primeval forests of oak and hickory were food for some of the grandest campfires ever seen, but we froze in front while scorching in back, and vice versa. And as to sleeping, many a fine fellow woke to find his shoes crisp from the too generous blaze. At this time the roads were so bad as to be almost impassable; artillery and wagons would be drawn hub deep. The artillery horses, Leyden's especially, were in bad condition, very weak, and six or eight pairs would be hitched to a single gun or caisson. It amused the infantry footing it on the side paths, and they would call out, "Here comes the cavalry, but what's that gun tied to the tail for?"

The people of these valleys made an interesting study. They doubtless went through much during the Civil War, and part of their disposition at the period of our occupation may be accounted for. There were, of course, some exceptions to be found in families of wealth, intelligence, and breeding, but the general run of people was hard in the extreme. Apparently they were without pity or compassion—generosity and sympathy were strangers to them; but hatred and revenge made their homes in the breasts of these farmers.

When the Confederates came on the ground, then was the time for acts of brutality against their Union neighbors, the political feeling in the valleys being about equally divided. Burnings, hangings, whippings were common—all acts of private vengeance and retaliation. When the turn came and the Unionists were in authority, Confederate sympathizers were made to suffer in the same way, and so it went on throughout the bloody strife.

Once an old woman came to my quarters with a request. She was a fierce, hard creature, strong, of wrinkled skin, but set, relentless features, clothed in the homespun worn by all, and like all, dipping snuff. Stick in mouth she made her statement. Some men had come to her house that morning—she knew them name by name. They had taken her old man from her and hung him to a tree by his own porch, and there left him—dead. She wanted the murderers caught and punished. Not a word of sorrow or softness, not a tear of regret, but only vengeance, and that instantly. I immediately sent a good troop of cavalry to seize the men, if to be found, but little hoped it. They had, as usual, taken refuge in the mountains, quite inaccessible to ordinary attack, and were safe there with numbers of others.

These mountain fastnesses were filled with evil-doers of both sides, Union and Confederate; murderers, thieves, deserters—all crimes could there be known.

The authorities had found it quite impossible to break up these formidable gangs by any ordinary force. A special expedition for the express purpose would be necessary.

It was to these mountains that a large body of deserters from a North Carolina regiment in Virginia was making a little time back.

A whole company had broken away, but were overtaken at a crossing of the James above Richmond. They showed fight and killed several of the pursuers, but were taken back and the leaders tried by court martial. Ten were convicted and sentenced to be shot. There had been too much leniency, and General Lee had the sentence executed. The unfortunates were tied to small sunken crosses in line about ten feet apart, with a firing party in front of each. Their division, Major-General Edward Johnson's, was drawn up in three sides of a hollow square, the deserters being on the fourth. At the word the firing was accurately executed and the men sank dead or dying at their stakes. The division was then marched by, close to their bodies, and it was hoped the lesson would be salutary.

General Grant made a visit to Knoxville about January 1st, General Foster in command. Before leaving he ordered Foster to expel us from Tennessee, if not altogether, at least beyond Bull's Gap and Red Bridge. Washington was still uneasy and pressing him hard to put us out of the way.

Preparing for it, he ordered the Ninth and the Twenty-third Corps to Mossy Creek, Fourth Corps to Strawberry Plain and the cavalry to Dandridge—a formidable force. That army moved about January 15th. Dandridge is on the French Broad River, about thirty miles from Knoxville, and was the enemy's objective.

General Foster was invalided, and Sheridan for a short time took command until relieved by the corps commander, Gordon Granger. A smart affair ensued, General Martin's cavalry doing our principal work. Granger retired and Longstreet rode into Dandridge and was soon in the house occupied by his old friend Granger. Pursuit was made impracticable by the condition of roads and want of a bridge train. Practically nothing was accomplished on this trial, and our troops as well as the enemy were sent back to camps.

On February 9th General Schofield took command at Knoxville of the Union army in East Tennessee. The pressure on him continued from Halleck, whose uneasiness at one time became almost uncontrollable. Grant at first made strong effort to carry out these wishes, but we were not moved. Later on he found the field too far from his other operations and likely to interrupt plans for the summer. He preferred resting on the apparent apathy at the South and using his East Tennessee strength in Virginia and Georgia where he should have full need for it. This view was to leave us in inactivity in East Tennessee, and no further serious effort was made. Longstreet had to move east when he was refused more troops for extended aggressive operations and received orders for return of Martin's cavalry to Georgia. Our march was begun about February 20, 1864, and was not disturbed. A fair position was found at Bull's Gap, and then we distributed our commands in good camps from the Holston to the Nolachucky.