Personal Recollections of Distinguished Generals

The great charm of the man was the effective style in which he advocated the firm convictions of his mind, and expressed the deep sympathies of his nature; and no man could rise from a conversation on the topics to which his mind naturally reverted, whenever he found a willing listener, without feeling the better for it, and with a better opinion of humanity in general. If he had a fault, it was that he conceived too much. His was

"A vigorous, various, versatile mind,"

which grasped a subject as if to struggle with it, and pursued an idea "to the death." It was, however, only his convictions in regard to great principles that he inculcated and forced upon others. He originated so much that he executed too little, and never gave practical effect to two or three of his mechanical inventions which have made fortunes for more practical and more shallow men. Sidell was in some respects the only counterpart I ever met to Sherman, and the parallel between them only held good with regard to their head work. They conceived equally, but Sherman executed most.

General Howard possessed these same attributes of firm, honest conviction, and the same fixedness of principles which distinguished Sidell. His moral honesty won him more admiration than his speeches or his abilities as a soldier; for, though energetic and persevering in his administration as a commander, and generally successful in his military efforts, his reputation in the army was more that of the Christian gentleman than of the great soldier. It was through the constant observation of his Christian duties that he won the title of the "Havelock of the war" and the reputation of an exemplar. He was strictly temperate, never imbibing intoxicating drinks, never profane, and always religious. There was not a great excess of religion in the army, particularly among the general officers, and Howard therefore became a prominent example, the more particularly as religion was looked upon by a great majority of the men only to be ridiculed. There was very little of religious feeling among the men of the army, save among those in the hospital. The hospital was the church of the camp, and there was little religious fervor among our veterans which did not date from the hospital. The soldier in the hospital was another being from the soldier in camp. He abandoned his bad habits when he lost his health or received his wound, and grew serious as he grew sick. The lion of the camp was invariably the lamb of the hospital. The almost universal habit of swearing in camp was abandoned in the hospital; profanity gave place to prayer, and the sick veteran became meek, talked in soft tones, and never failed to thank you for the smallest kindnesses where before he had laughed at them. I have often seen the convalescents gather in the sunshine to sing familiar hymns, and generally the wildest in camp were the most earnest in these religious exercises.

When Howard took command of the Army of the Tennessee, an old officer remarked that there was at last one chaplain in it. That particular army had not paid much attention to religion, believing, like Sherman, that crackers and meat were more necessary; and at first the men displayed but little respect for the "intruder from the Potomac," as much, indeed, from the fact that he came from the Potomac army as that he was what the men called "nothing but a parson." A very short time after taking command of this army, Howard gave orders that the batteries of his command, then in position besieging Atlanta, should not fire on the enemy on the Sabbath, unless it became absolutely necessary. The enemy soon heard of this order, and generally busied themselves on the Sabbath in casemating their guns and otherwise strengthening their works in Howard's front, exposing themselves with impunity, satisfied that Howard's men would keep the Sabbath holy, though doing so under compulsion. The soldiers did not like this forced silence, declaring that "it wasn't Grant's nor Sherman's way, nor Black Jack's (Logan) neither;" and one of the general officers went so far as to say that "a man who neglected his duty because it happened to be Sunday was doubtless a Christian, but not much of a soldier." The troops soon learned, however, that Howard was also a soldier; and when, a year afterward, he was relieved of the command by General Logan, he had won the love and admiration of his men.

General Howard would have liked to have been thought the representative man of the Army of the Tennessee, but there were no points of resemblance between him and the real representative man of that army. The Western soldiers were of a peculiar race, and under Grant the Army of the Tennessee, the representative army of the West, was drilled, marched, and fought into a peculiar type of an army. Sherman took command of it subsequently, and gave it many peculiarities, not all of which were creditable; but neither Grant nor Sherman were its representatives. Howard endeavored to reform the army morally and in its discipline, which even under Grant had been bad, and under Sherman very lax indeed, but failed to impart to it as a body any of the qualities which shone so prominently in his character. The real representative man of that remarkable army was General John A. Logan, of Illinois.

"Black Jack Logan," as he was facetiously called by his soldiers, in consequence of his dark complexion, is the very opposite in appearance and manner of Howard. Logan is a man of Sheridan's short and stumpy style of figure. Sheridan used to be called by the card-playing soldiers the "Jack of Clubs," and Logan was known as the "Jack of Spades." Logan is, too, the same daring, enthusiastic, and vigorous fighter that Sheridan is. He will always be prominent among the Marshal Neys of the war for the Union, and belongs to that representative class of fighting generals of which Sheridan, Hancock, Rousseau, and Hooker are the most distinguished graduates. A man of great daring, and full of dash and vim, Logan was, like the others, great only as a leader, and made no pretensions to generalship. He had the habit of decision to perfection, and went at every thing apparently without previous thought. He is a man who, possessing all that vigor and boldness of heart which great physical strength and health gives, united with a naturally warm, enthusiastic, and daring temperament, engaged heart and soul in every task that allured or interested him, and never abandoned it as a failure. A man of action, he was untiring, and, did he more definitely lay out his plans in life, would win a front place among the great men of the age. Not that he is vacillating, nor yet indecisive, but simply because he is not thoughtful, far-seeing, and politic, but impulsive. He is, indeed, too passionate to ever be politic.

With little prudence in planning, Logan had the daring to act, and his decision was shown in frequent emergencies. During the battle of Hope Church, Georgia, the rebels made a sudden charge upon a battery posted in Logan's line, and, before being repulsed, had secured two of the guns, which they attempted to carry off with them. Logan was busy in another part of the field, but, seeing the rebels retiring unpursued with the trophies of their charge, he dashed up to one of the regiments which had repulsed them, and exclaiming to his men, "Bring back those guns, you d – d rascals," led them in a charge for their recovery. The men followed him without regard to formation, and overtook and defeated the rebels before they could reach their lines, and secured the captured artillery.

On another occasion, when new to the service, a portion of Logan's regiment mutinied, and, stacking arms, refused to do duty. The adjutant informed Colonel Logan of the difficulty, and he, on hearing it, exclaimed, "Stacked arms! the devil they have!" Then, pausing a second as he considered the emergency, he continued, "Well, adjutant, I'll give them enough of stacking arms!" Accordingly, he formed the remaining four companies in line with loaded muskets, and stood them over the malcontents, whom he compelled to stack and unstack arms for twelve hours.

Logan's readiness to act was not always acceptable to his immediate commanders, because perhaps in some instances his activity was a reproach to less decisive men. Indecision and too great precaution in others was revolting to him; and I think I never saw a more thoroughly disgusted man than Logan was on the occasion of the failure before Resaca, Georgia, on May 9, 1864, consequent on the refusal of McPherson to assault the town. Not only was Logan's offer to accomplish the desired object declined as impracticable, but the campaign was robbed of its promised fruits by that refusal, and not only Logan, but the whole country had reason to be disgusted. Logan took no pains to conceal his chagrin and disgust. The facts of the unfortunate affair were about these:

The Army of the Tennessee, at the time forming the right wing of Sherman's Grand Army, had, on the morning of May 9, debouched through the narrow defile of Snake Creek Gap, and appeared before Resaca, McPherson having positive orders to occupy the place. The movement through the Gap had turned Joe Johnston's position at Dalton, placed the Army of the Tennessee in his rear, and, if Resaca had been taken, would have closed the direct route to Atlanta, and forced the rebels to retreat by circuitous and almost impracticable roads, and at the probable cost of all his trains and heavy guns. There was no good reason, had Resaca been carried, why Johnston should not have been seriously damaged, and perhaps his army dispersed; and there is no good reason why Resaca was not taken on this occasion. The force defending it was the small garrison of a ten-gun fort and sixteen hundred dismounted cavalry under the rebel General Canty, who were engaged in patroling and observing the Oostanaula River. Johnston could not, on May 9, have concentrated two thousand men at Resaca for its defense. General McPherson had not less than thirty thousand men in front of the position, and not a mile distant from the fort. Unfortunately, General Granville M. Dodge, commanding the Sixteenth Corps, and a man of even less decision than McPherson, happened on that morning to be in advance, and Logan was in reserve. On approaching Resaca, and after occupying a low ridge of hills commanding the town and the river in its front, General Dodge halted his command and began to reconnoitre. The delay in the advance brought McPherson and Logan to the front, and from a prominent knob of the range of hills which had been carried by Dodge, they examined the town and calculated in their own minds the chances of carrying the position. Dodge finally reported the passage of the river and the capture of the fort as impracticable, and declared it as his belief that a large force was then in the town. Logan rather warmly and hastily disputed this, and declared that he could carry the fort and town with his corps. General McPherson revolved the matter over in his mind, and as the woman who hesitates is lost, so with the commander who in an emergency stops to calculate, he lost the opportunity. While he was hesitating and doubting between the arguments of Dodge and the assertions and declarations of Logan – for Logan is not the man to offer arguments when the opportunity for demonstration is at hand – time was consumed, and finally, much to the disgust of every body who had come out to fight, McPherson ordered the whole army back to Snake Creek Gap, and employed a large part of it all the ensuing night in throwing up works to defend a defile which was apparently strong enough to defend itself.

The next day Sherman began moving the rest of the army through Snake Creek Gap, and at the same time Johnston evacuated Dalton, and began marching on Resaca. At night on that or the next day, May 11th, while General Logan and staff and myself were at supper, General John M. Palmer and others on the march stopped at Logan's tent, and were asked to take a cup of coffee. While we were eating, the conversation turned on the situation, and I remarked that evidently "Joe Johnston had been caught sleeping." Logan and Palmer both in a breath answered that it wasn't at all certain that Johnston was napping, but that, on the contrary, it was very improbable that we could do more than strike his rear guard at Resaca. This turned out, in the end, to be the case. The whole of Sherman's army was not ready to advance until the 12th of May, when it moved forward, Logan this time in advance, and occupied, after considerable hard fighting with Johnston's rear division, the very same position which McPherson had previously held on the 9th, and from which, even with Resaca uncaptured, Johnston would have had great difficulty in dislodging him. But now, three days behind time, Sherman, and Thomas, and Logan, and a number of others who had gathered on the bald knob to which I have before alluded as overlooking Resaca, had the melancholy pleasure of witnessing Joe Johnston's army filing through the town and taking up positions defending it, and covering the bridges and fords of the Oostanaula.

When he had first secured this position, Logan ordered one of his batteries, commanded by Captain De Gress, to take position on the knob I have mentioned, and open upon the bridge and fort. The order was obeyed with alacrity. Courage is a sort of magnet which attracts its like; it surrounded Logan with men of his own stamp, among whom were Major Charles J. Stolbrand and Captain Francis De Gress, and it was not long before these two had the battery posted and ready to open at Logan's command. I was at the time on this knob, and anticipated seeing some handsome artillery practice and a great scattering among the rebels, very plainly visible below, crossing the river and moving about in the fort, not much over a mile distant. But it was destined that the scattering should be among our own forces supporting De Gress's battery and lying along the ridge, and particularly was there to be "much scattering" on my part. I had noticed, as had others, the peculiar appearance of the hill on which the battery was posted and on which I stood, but had not suspected why the change had been wrought. The trees, with the exception of a single tall, straight oak left standing in the centre and on the very summit of the knob, had been carefully felled, and the tops thrown down the sides and slope of the hill, forming a sort of abatis, and making the approach to the summit rather difficult. Several persons had made inquiries and suggestions as to the purpose of the rebels in clearing the hill and forming the abatis around it, but it was not until De Gress had opened fire on Resaca that the mystery was solved. Then it suddenly flashed on the minds of all simultaneously with the flash of the first rebel gun in the fort in Resaca. The first round of De Gress came very near being his last, for the ten guns in the rebel fort beyond the river opened simultaneously on him, and every shot fell among the guns and troops supporting them. It was then discovered that the hill on which De Gress had posted his guns had been cleared by the rebels and one tree left standing as a target for artillery practice. For at least a year the gunners in the fort in Resaca had been practicing by firing at this tree, and they had the range of the hill to such accuracy that every shot fell in our midst. The first broadside sent me to cover, and I hastily dropped behind a huge oak stump left standing, and which afforded ample protection. Here I could see the rebels at their guns, watch De Gress and Stolbrand at theirs, and, by turning half around, see the troops which lay near me supporting the battery. The first shells thrown by the rebels had wounded several of these, and their cries of pain, as they were carried to the rear, could be plainly heard, and did not in any great measure add to my comfort, or increase my confidence in the invulnerability of my position, and I began to conclude it was not bomb proof. Meantime the rebels were firing vigorously, and after two or three shots De Gress was silenced – not that his guns were disabled, but that the men could not work them. The place was literally too hot to allow of a man exposing himself, and all but Logan, Stolbrand, and De Gress sought cover, and clung as closely as possible to the ground. These three, however, stood their ground, very foolishly I thought at the time, and how they escaped being struck I can not conceive. The fire of the rebels was singularly accurate, and from the cries of our wounded it was apparent that it was also very effective. I had been lying behind the stump whose protection I had sought for twenty minutes, looking with interest at the firing of the rebels, when a shell from one of their guns struck directly in front of the stump, entered and plowed up the ground for a distance of ten feet, sending the soil high in the air like spray, and then, striking the stump, bounded high above it, and fell about five feet behind me with a heavy thug! The soil which had been thrown up by it descended about me, and, as I crouched low, making myself as small as possible, and wishing myself even smaller, literally buried me alive. I thought every piece of the soil which struck me was going through me. At last, when the shell descended near me, my demoralization was complete. Fearing that it would explode, I sprang up from my recumbent position and ran with all my speed to the left of the line. As I did so I came to the abatis of timber, heaped at least four feet high. I never stopped to consider, but, without hesitation, made a tremendous leap, and cleared the obstructions at a bound, amid the loud laughter of a whole brigade, which, looking on, actually rose up to laugh at and applaud my hasty retreat. When I reached a place of safety out of range of the rebels, and beyond reach of the particular shell which I had so much dreaded, I found that the confounded thing had not exploded. I was too much demoralized, however, to contemplate going back while the rebels held the range of that hill, and so sat down, carefully getting behind another stump, to receive the congratulations of the colonel and adjutant of one of the supporting regiments on the gymnastic abilities which I had just displayed.

It was not until sundown and after the cessation of the firing that I ventured to return to the hill. Here Logan and Stolbrand still remained, and Sherman, Thomas, and others had also come up. While the others consulted together Logan sat aside, leaning against my stump, and looking exceedingly glum and disgusted. When I approached him he looked up and laughed, evidently at the recollection of my demoralization and flight. I sat down beside him and said,

"Well, general, you see I was right last night. Some body was asleep."

"Yes," said he, in answer, "but you was mistaken in the person. It was not Joe Johnston who was napping."

There was good reason to be morose over this affair. The failure of McPherson on the 9th of May made the campaign of Atlanta a necessity. Had Logan, instead of Dodge, been in advance of McPherson's army on the 9th of May, there would have been no Hope Church affair, no Kenesaw Mountain sacrifice, no battles on the Chattahoochee, or before Atlanta, or at Jonesborough, for the campaign would have been ended, and Atlanta captured at Resaca in the dispersion of Joe Johnston's army.

Something of this same ability in execution which was developed in Logan and the others to whom I have alluded characterized General John W. Geary, of Pennsylvania, and few officers labored more zealously or more effectively than he did. His adventurous disposition, developed early in life, and leading him to a remarkably varied career, could not be other than the result of a bold and daring nature, which led him early to seek activity when he might have chosen a more passive but less glorious life. His enthusiastic ardor for military life rendered him in his youth an adept in all military matters, and led him naturally into the military service of the country. He was built, too, for a soldier, possessing a rare physique, his tall, burly figure reminding one of Rousseau or Steedman. His adventurous career began in Mexico, where, as colonel of the Second Pennsylvania, he served with distinction under Scott, from Vera Cruz to the capital, suffering wounds at Chepultepec and at the assault of the city of Mexico. After the war, sighing, like Hooker, for the excitements of California, he went to San Francisco, and was soon after appointed postmaster, and subsequently elected mayor. President Pierce appointed him Governor of Kansas, but Buchanan decapitated him on account of his adherence to the person and principles of Douglas. He early entered the war for the Union as Colonel of the Twenty-eighth Pennsylvania Infantry, and fought through each grade to the position of major general, winning a bright reputation as a bold and unflinching fighter.

The most remarkable of Geary's exploits was the famous "midnight battle of Wauhatchie," a sort of companion picture to Joe Hooker's "battle above the clouds." It took place, too, at the foot of the mountain on which Hooker fought, and was, in a measure, preliminary to that struggle. It was fought for position, but a position of vital importance to both the rebels and Union forces, and consequently it was fought for with great desperation. The movement which brought it about was the first of those looking to the relief of the starving army at Chattanooga, and the purpose was to occupy a position which would cover a road by which provisions could be brought from the railroad terminus at Bridgeport. The occupation of this position was absolutely necessary, and Geary was fully impressed with the importance of quickly seizing and desperately holding on to it. By the success of the movement the route to Bridgeport would be shortened by many miles; on its being thus shortened depended the provisioning of Chattanooga; on this contingency depended the holding of that position, and on the retention of that position the safety of the army and its immense and valuable material.

Geary seized the position with great alacrity, and much to the astonishment of the rebel Longstreet, who watched him from the summit of Lookout Mountain. From his position on "Signal Rock" – an overarching rock on the western side of the mountain – Longstreet had before his eyes the whole country as on a map, and when, in the dusk of evening, the camp-fires of Geary and Howard's troops located the positions which Hooker had seized and was fortifying, the importance of the success attained flashed upon Longstreet's mind in an instant, and he saw, in the seizure of Wauhatchie by Geary, the virtual relief of the besieged garrison of Chattanooga. He at once communicated with Bragg, and on explaining the altered situation to that officer, the latter at once directed Longstreet to attack Geary and Howard, and drive them back at all hazards. Longstreet returned to his position on "Signal Rock," and soon had his troops in readiness to descend from their position on the mountain, and assault Geary at Wauhatchie. From his position on "Signal Rock" Longstreet directed the assault by signals, and to this circumstance, singularly enough, he owed his defeat. Geary's force was totally inadequate to contend with the superior forces of the enemy. General Schurz, who was sent by Hooker to re-enforce him, never reached the position, and but from the fact that Geary's signal-officers could read the rebel signals, he must have been overwhelmed and driven from the position. For some months previous to this battle our signal-officers had been in possession of the rebel signal code, and hence the flaming torches of Longstreet's signal-officers on "Signal Rock" revealed to Geary every order given to the rebel troops advancing against him. He was thus made aware of Longstreet's plan of attack, was enabled to anticipate and meet every movement of the rebels, and, thus forewarned, so to employ his small force by concentration in the critical part of the field at the critical moment of attack as to repulse every assault which was made, either by counter-charges or rapid flank movements. After repeatedly throwing themselves against Geary's force in vain, the rebels at length drew off discomfited. During the whole battle the flaming torch of Longstreet flashed orders that showed, after each repulse, his increased desperation, and finally, much to Geary's gratification, he saw it signal the recall. All the while the figure of Longstreet on "Signal Rock," standing out boldly against the dark sky, was plainly visible, and, as Geary once remarked, forcibly reminded him of a picture which he had once seen of Satan on the mountain pointing out the riches of the world to the Tempted, save that only the figure of the Tempter was visible.