CHAPTER XIII.

GEN. JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON AND OTHER OFFICERS.

The Confederate army had five full generals, ranking in date of their commission as follows: Samuel Cooper, whose headquarters were at Richmond, Va., the capital, and who was never assigned to the field; Robert E. Lee, Albert Sidney Johnston, Joseph E. Johnston, and G. P. Beauregard. All of them had resigned from the United States army to join the Confederate States army.

Joseph E. Johnston was fourth on the list, but he was the highest ranking officer who had thus resigned. He was assigned to the command of the Army of Tennessee in 1864, when it had expended its greatest strength, there being no resources to draw upon. He was confronted by an army double the numerical strength of his own, with all the resources at hand that could be asked for. Much of the territory of the Confederate States and its most resourceful sections were in the hands of the enemy. The Mississippi River had been closed to Confederate navigation, foreign intervention had become a dead letter, the exchange of prisoners had indefinitely ceased, and the blockade of Southern ports completed the hope of receiving resources from the outside. Truly was the South hermetically sealed.

Who can say that the tactics assumed by General Johnston in his Atlanta campaign were not the best that could be used under all the circumstances? Or that, if he could have succeeded at all, it must have been by the military operations he adopted? Do not the operations of General Hood in a few weeks thereafter prove this to be true? For, after fighting a few battles around Atlanta, losing as many men as Johnston did in his campaign from Dalton to Atlanta, and then falling back to Jonesboro, thirty miles south, where he fought Sherman, all without material results, he then moved to the rear of Atlanta, continuing his campaign against Nashville, that terminated so disastrously. Again, were they not the same tactics that General Lee was inaugurating when he left Petersburg with his little army, retreating to Appomattox, which movement, we can see now, was made when it was too late?

I am not able to say what would have been the result of Johnston’s proposed movement at Atlanta, but I can say this: that it promised more success than any that was attempted later. The restoration of General Johnston to the command of the Army of Tennessee looked as if Mr. Davis was repudiating his order of a few months before. General Johnston in accepting it displayed a magnanimity of character and patriotism never excelled. The army from which he had been so summarily dismissed was now shattered and broken to pieces, and the Confederacy itself was staggering to its downfall. His desire to share the fate of his soldiers and countrymen must have been the only motive.

When Joseph E. Johnston died, in 1891, a large and representative meeting of the citizens of Nashville was held in the First Presbyterian Church to do honor to his memory, and the following preamble and resolutions were unanimously adopted--to wit:

_Mr. Chairman_: Your committee to whom was referred the resolutions touching upon the life and character of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston beg leave to submit the following:

General Johnston died in the City of Washington on the evening of March 21, 1891. Society is so constructed that individual character becomes prominent and conspicuous by deed and action no less than by expressed thought. As we look back through the ages, we mark some names that shine as beacon lights along the way, whose characters we accept as prototypes of all their contemporaries. Joseph E. Johnston is the Confederate soldier’s model--not from the fact alone that he was a good soldier, but time, having dealt gently with him, lengthening his days through the trying years that have passed since the war, has completed the picture, and as we behold the man we cannot but exclaim: “As grand in peace as he was valiant in war.” It is hardly permissible by resolution to speak at length of our deceased comrade; and it is sufficient for this occasion to say that he was born in Old Virginia in 1807; was educated at West Point Military Academy, graduating thirteenth in the distinguished class of 1829, numbering forty-six graduates; was a lieutenant upon the staff of General Scott during the Indian War of 1832-36; was a soldier in the war with Mexico, was wounded three times in action, was promoted three times for gallantry during the war, and was carried from the field of Cerro Gordo desperately wounded; in 1855 was made Lieutenant Colonel of the First United States Cavalry, and in 1860 was made a brigadier general and assigned to the position of Quartermaster General of the United States army.

Upon the secession of his State, he resigned the position and repaired to Richmond. He was the highest ranking officer who resigned from the United States army to join the Confederacy. He was placed in command at Harper’s Ferry, at that time thought to be its most important position. He withdrew from the enemy’s front at Harper’s Ferry and came upon the field of Manassas in time to turn the tide of battle and rout the army of General McDowell. He was in command of the Army of Virginia in 1862 and resisted the advance of General McClelland as he approached Richmond by way of the Peninsula. He was seriously wounded at Seven Pines on the 31st of May, 1862, while leading his columns to the attack. This-wound incapacitated him for service for many months. General Lee succeeded him in command of that army. General Johnston was in command in Mississippi for a short time, and in the first months of 1864 he superseded General Bragg in the command of the Army of Tennessee after the disaster at Missionary Ridge. It was here that he displayed his wonderful talent in reorganizing that army and bringing it to its highest state of perfection in a few months’ time. When Sherman began his move on Atlanta in the spring of 1864, and as he approached Tunnel Hill, Ga., on his first day’s march, the battle opened in earnest, and for seventy days and seventy nights its roar never ceased to reverberate. Outnumbered almost two to one, every flank movement of the enemy was met by a line of battle. At Resaca, New Hope Church, Kennesaw Mountain, and Marietta the heavy skirmishing resulted in battles, but in no instance in a general engagement. Some days upon the skirmish line and when the fighting would not rise to the dignity of battle the loss would be almost as great as the United States suffered in any battle in the war with Mexico. Well-authenticated battle reports show that General Sherman’s loss on his march to Atlanta was fully 40,000, while Johnston’s was less than 10,000. During the seventy days’ fighting and moving from position to position it is a remarkable fact that no ammunitions or provisions of any description were lost, except some siege guns that were left at Resaca, having no transportation for their removal. The morale of the army was not impaired in any particular, and its movements were executed with the precision of a dress parade. No commander could have possessed to a greater degree the supreme confidence of his men, and no general rested more securely upon the courage of his soldiers.

Upon reaching the front at Atlanta in 1864, General Johnston was relieved and General Hood placed in command of the Army of Tennessee. It is impossible to express the surprise this order created, from the highest officer to the humblest private. A great calamity seemed to have spread itself over the army, and the developments a week or ten days thereafter confirmed the great mistake that had been made.

When the broken fragments of the Army of Tennessee assembled in North Carolina in the spring of 1865, General Johnston was called to its command again. A forlorn hope, indeed! His presence revived the spirits of those of his old soldiers who were left, and they felt strong and confident again, as was shown in the hotly contested battle of Bentonville near the close of the war. The end came in a few weeks thereafter. General Lee had surrendered at Appomattox. Two hundred thousand soldiers were concentrating under General Sherman, and nothing was left to Johnston but to surrender his less than 20,000 soldiers upon the best terms possible. In the negotiations that followed General Johnston showed himself to be a diplomatist and statesman.

In his farewell address to the army Johnston urged his soldiers “to observe faithfully the terms of pacification, and to discharge the obligations of good and peaceful citizens as well as you have performed the duties of thorough soldiers in the field.” Such, in brief, is his military history. He was the last of the great commanders of the Army of Tennessee.

Albert Sidney Johnston fell at Shiloh, Gen. Braxton Bragg died soon after the war, and Gen. J. B. Hood a few years later. Under their leadership the Army of Tennessee made its glorious history and won imperishable honor. The circumstances that molded the character of the soldiery who composed that army and the facts that precipitated the contest in which they fought can never exist again.

The people of this Southland give Joseph E. Johnston a place in their hearts and affections alongside those of Sidney Johnston, Lee, and Jackson. Memory’s sweetest retrospect will be to contemplate the character of each, great and good, brave and honorable in their lives, and glorious in their death. Sleep on, great soldiers! Most of your lieutenants, with the long line of nameless heroes, have preceded you in crossing the river. Your names and fame will be secure in the keeping of grateful and admiring countrymen.

In summing up the public services of General Johnston, we conclude that as a civilian he had attained an honorable citizenship. He was called to represent Virginia in Congress, and was given high position in State and national affairs. He has discharged his trust ably, faithfully, and with an eye single to the public weal and the reëstablishment of the fraternity of the American people. That he was wounded seven times in battle attests his courage as a soldier. “Beware of Johnston’s retreats” relieves him of its usual disaster. Aggressive at the beginning of the war, he was forced to accept the Fabian tactics, and we learned too late that if the Confederacy could have succeeded it must have been through this policy. His magnanimous patriotism cannot be overestimated when we see him again accepting, in North Carolina, the command of the broken and shattered fragments of his once well-appointed army. Therefore be it

_Resolved by this vast assemblage of comrades and sympathizing friends_: 1. That we recognize in the life and character of General Johnston the noblest and highest type of the true Confederate soldier and American citizen, true to every profession and trust confided to his care. We commend his character as worthy of emulation, view his death as a national calamity, and extend to the members of his bereaved family our condolence sincere and heartfelt.

2. That a copy of these resolutions be sent to his nearest kinsman.

GEORGE B. GUILD, _Chairman_; W. H. JACKSON, J. H. HAYES, R. LIN CAVE, J. A. RIDLEY, M. B. PILCHER, J. H. NEAL.

The Fourth Tennessee Cavalry Regiment served in Wheeler’s corps after it was first organized in 1862 till the surrender. Maj. Gen. Joe Wheeler was a graduate of West Point Academy, and was assigned to the artillery, which is taken as an honor preferment at the Academy. He was among the first to resign from the United States army and tender his services to the Confederate government. He recruited an infantry regiment in Alabama and saw his first service at the battle of Shiloh. Immediately afterwards he was made chief of the cavalry, with rank of major general, and assigned to the Army of Tennessee. He was brave, energetic, and indefatigable in his efforts to obtain correct information of the enemy, their movements, their forces, and the topography of the surrounding country, for reliable information concerning these essentials was necessary. I have known him time and again to take a reliable squad and go in person on the most daring and hazardous excursions to obtain needed information.

Lieut. Gen. A. P. Stewart said to the writer since the war that General Wheeler was what a cavalry officer ought to be, the eyes and ears of the army; that he excelled all cavalry officers we had in this regard: that he was obedient to orders, vigilant, prompt to act; and that the Army of Tennessee rested in perfect security when Wheeler was on the front. He fought many hard-contested battles during his four years of service, killing, wounding, and capturing thousands of the enemy. He conducted many of the longest and most successful raids against the enemy, notably the raid he made into Middle Tennessee after the battle of Chickamauga, when he burned one thousand of the enemy’s wagons loaded with the richest stores, besides wounding and capturing more of the enemy than his own command numbered.

General Wheeler was a member of Congress from the State of Alabama when he was appointed brigadier general in the United States army and fought in the Spanish-American war. He fought the largest and most noted battle of the land forces on San Juan Hill, at Santiago, Cuba, in which he contributed more to its success than any other general, its result being the defeat and capitulation of the Spanish forces. Among the many notable cavalry generals I would enroll the name of General Wheeler next to that of Tennessee’s great general, Bedford Forrest, and superior to him in many essentials as a great cavalryman. General Wheeler died in Washington soon after the Spanish-American War, where he had been serving the State of Alabama as a conspicuous Congressman for fifteen or twenty years, and was buried in the National Cemetery at Arlington.

Col. Baxter Smith. Lieut. Col. Paul F. Anderson, and Maj. W. Scott Bledsoe were respectively the field officers of the Fourth Tennessee Cavalry Regiment. Young, active, patriotic, brave in battle, each of them was called at times to the command and had the full confidence and support of the soldiers.

At the breaking out of the war Colonel Smith recruited a company at his old home, Gallatin, Sumner County, Tenn., and was elected captain of the company, which, upon organization, became a part of a battalion of cavalry of which James D. Bennett became lieutenant colonel and Baxter Smith major. Their first service was with Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston at Bowling Green. Ky. When Johnston evacuated the place, the battalion retreated with him to Shiloh and fought in that hotly contested battle. After the battle of Shiloh Major Smith was ordered to Knoxville; and when Gen. (then Col.) N. B. Forrest organized a command for an advance into Middle Tennessee, Major Smith was assigned to the command of a battalion of four or five companies that afterwards became a part of his regiment. They participated under General Forrest in that most brilliant battle at Murfreesboro, July 13, 1863, resulting in the capture of a large force of the enemy’s infantry and artillery. A force much larger than that of General Forrest occupied Murfreesboro, and were all captured. On Forrest’s return to McMinnville with his captures, he encountered a force of the enemy occupying a blockhouse at Morrison Station, on the railroad. Major Smith was ordered to dismount his companies or a part of them and take the blockhouse. They dismounted, and, charging up to the fort, twelve of them were killed and a large number of them wounded in a few minutes’ time. They were repulsed, and that ended the affair. This affair taught the cavalry a lesson and afterwards they carried a section of light artillery with them on their raids. Major Smith’s battalion accompanied General Bragg on his raid into Kentucky, participating in the battle of Perryville, and was at the capture and surrender of four thousand Federals at Munfordville. On Bragg’s return to Tennessee, this battalion, with other companies, was organized into the Fourth Tennessee Cavalry, of which the gentlemen mentioned became the field officers. On reaching home immediately after the surrender, Colonel Smith moved to the city of Nashville to practice law, where he remained a well-known and successful lawyer, except for serving one term in the State Senate, till two or more years ago, when he was appointed one of the secretaries of the Chickamauga Park Commission, which necessitated his removal to Chattanooga, where he now resides. He is the only surviving field officer of the Regiment.

Lieut. Col. Paul F. Anderson was a native of Wilson County, Tenn., but a few years before the War between the States he was residing in the State of Texas. He attached himself to the Eighth Texas Cavalry Regiment, which was organized among the first Confederate troops, and went with that regiment to Gen. Albert S. Johnston’s army, then at Bowling Green, Ky. He was with Colonel Terry, commanding the Eighth Texas, at Woodsonville, above Bowling Green, when that most gallant officer was killed. John A. Wharton, who succeeded Terry in command of the regiment, gave Anderson authority to go to his old home at Lebanon, Tenn., and recruit a company, which he did, enlisting the celebrated “Cedar Snags,” composed of young men of the best families from the counties of Wilson, Davidson, and Sumner, afterwards becoming Company K of the Regiment. At the date of the organization of the Regiment Col. John A. Wharton had become a major general and took Company K as his escort. Anderson becoming lieutenant colonel of the Regiment, James H. Britton succeeded him as captain of Company K, both holding their ranks till the surrender, in 1865. Lieutenant Colonel Anderson was a brave and most gallant officer. To hear him talk one would conclude that he was too rash; but, really, he was one of the most discreet officers that were to be found. He knew better when to make or decline a fight than any officer of my acquaintance. His quaint sayings became proverbial in the army, and the infantry especially would cry out as he passed: “Here comes Paul.” It seemed that he knew everybody and everybody knew him. I have heard Major General Hume, who was commanding the division, say to Lieutenant Colonel Anderson as he passed his line of battle: “Well, Colonel Paul, you know better than I can tell you what to do if the enemy approaches your line.” Anderson was wounded slightly at Fort Donelson in February, 1863, and in the Kilpatrick fight at Fayetteville. A few days or a week before the surrender he was absent for some cause, and I do not think he was with the Regiment at the time of the surrender. I know that Colonel Smith was in command of the brigade and Major Bledsoe was in command of the Regiment. Anyhow, he had fought the fight to a finish and had won all the honors a parole could confer upon him. After the surrender he settled in Helena, Ark. He died there of yellow fever some years ago, greatly respected by the citizens, who buried him near the monument erected to Gen. Pat Cleburne.

Maj. Scott Bledsoe was a practicing lawyer in Fentress County, Tenn., when the war broke out. He was a descendant of the famed Bledsoe family that settled in Sumner County. He recruited and was elected captain of a company that afterwards became Company I in the Regiment. He, with his company, participated in the battle of Fishing Creek under the lamented Gen. Felix K. Zollicoffer, who fell upon that unfortunate field. The poet has most beautifully said of General Zollicoffer:

“First in fight and first in the arms Of the white-winged angel of glory, With the heart of the South at the feet of God, And his wounds to tell the story.”

Major Bledsoe, with his company, was in General Bragg’s Kentucky campaign in 1862, returning with General Bragg to Tennessee. In October, 1862, when the Regiment was organized at Nolensville, Tenn., he was appointed major, and his company became Company I (as before stated) of the Fourth Tennessee Cavalry Regiment. He served continually with the Regiment until the surrender, and was in all of its battles and campaigns. His brother, Robert Bledsoe, afterwards killed in Wheeler’s raid into Middle Tennessee, succeeded him as captain of the company. Major Bledsoe was a true and brave soldier and a most affable and intelligent gentleman. After the surrender he and many of his old company moved to other parts of the country. In fact, a local warfare existed in their section between the clans of Champ Ferguson on the Confederate side and those of “Tinker Dave” Beatty on the part of the Union men, and many revolting killings occurred. This lasted several years after peace was declared. Maj. Scott Bledsoe died at Cleburne, Tex., some years ago, one of its most prominent and wealthy citizens.