Part 1142

"During more than a year past [this report bears date October 8, 1864], it has been generally known to our military authorities that a secret and treasonable organization, affiliated with the Southern Rebellion, and chiefly military in its character, has been rapidly extending itself throughout the West. A variety of agencies … have been employed, and successfully, to ascertain its nature and extent, as well as its aims and its results; and, as this investigation has led to the arrest, in several States, of a number of its prominent members, as dangerous public enemies, it has been deemed proper to set forth in full the acts and purposes of this organization. … This secret association first developed itself in the West in the year 1862, about the period [August] of the first conscription of troops, which it aimed to obstruct and resist. Originally known in certain localities as the 'Mutual Protection Society,' the 'Circle of Honor,' or the 'Circle' or 'Knights of the Mighty Host,' but more widely as the 'Knights of the Golden Circle,' it was simply an inspiration of the Rebellion, being little other than an extension, among the disloyal and disaffected at the North, of the association of the latter name, which had existed for some years at the South [see GOLDEN CIRCLE, KNIGHTS OF], and from which it derived all the chief features of its organization. During the Summer and Fall of 1863, the Order, both at the North and South, underwent some modifications as well as a change of name. In consequence of a partial exposure which had been made of the signs and ritual of the Knights of the Golden Circle, Sterling Price had instituted, as its successor in Missouri, a secret political association, which he called the Corps de Belgique, or Southern League, his principal coadjutor being Charles L. Hunt, of St. Louis, then Belgian Consul at that city. … Meanwhile, also, there had been instituted at the North, in the autumn of 1863, by sundry disloyal persons, prominent among whom were Vallandigham and P. C. Wright, of New York, a secret, Order intended to be general throughout the country … and which was termed, and has since been widely known as the O. A. K., or 'Order of American Knights.' … The secret signs and character of the Order having become known to our military authorities, further modifications in the ritual and forms were introduced, and its name was finally changed to that of the O. S. L., or 'Order of the Sons of Liberty,' or the 'Knights of the Order of the Sons of Liberty.' These later changes are represented to have been first instituted … in May last [1864], but the new name was at once generally adopted throughout the West, though in some localities the association is still better known as the 'Order of American Knights.' Meanwhile, also, the Order has received certain local designations. In parts of Illinois it has been called at times the 'Peace Organization,' in Kentucky the 'Star Organization,' and in Missouri the 'American Organization;' these, however, being apparently names used outside of the lodges of the Order. Its members have also been familiarly designated as 'Butternuts' by the country people of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. … The 'Temples' or 'Lodges' of the Order are numerously scattered through the States of Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, and Kentucky. They are also officially reported as established, to a less extent, in Michigan and the other Western States, as well as in New York, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, and Tennessee. … It has been asserted by delegates to the Supreme Council of February last, that the number was there represented to be from 800,000 to 1,000,000; but Vallandigham, in his speech last summer at Dayton, Ohio, placed it at 500,000, which is probably much nearer the true total. … Although the Order has, from the outset, partaken of the military character, it was not till the summer or fall of 1863 that it began to be generally organized as an armed body.' … In March last the entire armed force of the Order capable of being mobilized for effective service was represented to be 340,000 men."

_J. Holt, Judge Advocate General's Report on Secret Associations and Conspiracies against the Government._

ALSO IN: _E. McPherson, Political History of the United States during the Great Rebellion, appendix, pages 445-454._

_J. A. Logan, The Great Conspiracy, page 499, and appendix chapter B._

_J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay, Abraham Lincoln, volume 8, chapter 1._

See, also, COPPERHEADS.

{3542}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (October). The St. Albans Raid.

"Along the Northern border … the rebel agents, sent thither on 'detached service' by the Rebel Government, were active in movements intended to terrify and harass the people. On the 19th of October, a party of them made a raid into St. Albans, Vermont, robbing the banks there, and making their escape across the lines into Canada with their plunder, having killed one of the citizens in their attack. Pursuit was made, and several of the marauders were arrested in Canada. Proceedings were commenced to procure their extradition [which were protracted until after the close of the war]. … The Government received information that this affair was but one of a projected series, and that similar attempts would be made all along the frontier. More than this, there were threats, followed by actual attempts, to set fire to the principal Northern cities."

_H. J. Raymond, Life and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln, page 611._

ALSO IN: _J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay, Abraham Lincoln, volume 8, chapter 1._

_Correspondence relating to the Fenian Invasion and the Rebellion of the Southern States (Ottawa, 1869), pages 117-138._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (October: North Carolina). The destruction of the ram Albemarle.

The ram Albemarle, which had proved in the spring so dangerous an antagonist to the blockading vessels in the North Carolina Sounds, was still lying at Plymouth, in the Roanoke River, and another attack from her was feared by the fleet.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (APRIL-MAY: NORTH CAROLINA).

"She was finally destroyed by a brave young lieutenant, William B. Cushing, who blew her up with a torpedo. Though only twenty years old, he was one of the most daring officers in the navy, and he had become noted for his fearlessness in the expeditions in the sounds and rivers of North Carolina. One dark night (October 27) he set out from the fleet in a steam launch—a long open boat used by naval vessels—with a crew of thirteen officers and men. The launch was fitted with a torpedo which could be run out forward on the end of a long boom so as to be thrust under the vessel to be attacked. Cushing got within sixty feet of the Albemarle before his boat was seen. The guards then shouted the alarm, rang the boat's bell, and began firing their muskets at the launch. There was a raft of logs thirty feet wide around the Albemarle to protect her from just such attacks, but Cushing ran the bow of the launch upon the logs, lowered the boom so that the torpedo came right under the side of the vessel, and fired it. At the same moment a shot from one of the great guns of the ram crashed through the launch, and it was overwhelmed by a flood of water thrown up by the explosion of the torpedo. The Confederates called out to Cushing to surrender, but he refused, and ordering his men to save themselves as they best could, he sprang into the water amid a shower of musket balls and swam down the river. He succeeded in reaching the shore, almost exhausted, and hid himself during the next day in a swamp, where he was cared for by some negroes. From them he heard that the Albemarle had been sunk by his torpedo. The next night he found a small boat in a creek, paddled in it down the river, and before midnight was safe on board one of the vessels of the fleet. Only one other man of the party escaped, all the rest being either drowned or captured. The Albemarle being thus put out of the way, Plymouth was recaptured a few days afterward."

_J. D. Champlin, Jr. Young Folks' History of the War for the Union, chapter 33._

ALSO IN: _W. B. Cushing, E. Holden, and others, The Confederate Ram Albemarle (Battles and Leaders, volume 4)._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (November: Tennessee). Hood's advance Northward. The Battle of Franklin.

When General Sherman started on his march to the sea General Thomas was left to oppose Hood. "The force Thomas had for this purpose was curiously small, considering how formidable Hood's army had been in the Atlanta Campaign, and still was. All Thomas had for immediate field service were the Fourth and Twenty-Third Corps, numbering together about 22,000 infantry, and also about 3,000 cavalry. These troops were sent to Pulaski, Tennessee, in command of General Schofield, Thomas, himself remaining at Nashville. A little after the middle of November, 1864, Hood crossed the Tennessee River and inaugurated his campaign by a flank movement. He made a rapid march upon Columbia, with the view of getting in behind Schofield, who was at Pulaski. But Schofield retired to Columbia in time to frustrate Hood's plans. The two armies remained in close proximity to each other at Columbia until November 28th, when Hood made another skilfully-planned flank movement … to Spring Hill, in rear of Schofield. Again Hood was foiled. … General Thomas at Nashville wanted the Confederates held back as long as possible, in order that he might have time to receive there his expected reinforcement of A. J. Smith's corps. It was, therefore, Schofield's duty to check Hood's advance as long as he could. … He started General Stanley, with a division of 5,000 men, and a great part of his artillery, to Spring Hill (12 miles north of Columbia) early in the morning. He put two other divisions on the road. He held one division in front of Columbia, and prevented the enemy from crossing the river during the entire day, and also that night. Stanley reached Spring Hill in time to prevent Hood from occupying that place. He skirmished and fought with Hood's advance troops at Spring Hill during the afternoon of November 29th. … Schofield … accomplished exactly what he believed he could accomplish. He held back his enemy at Columbia with one hand and fenced off the blow at Spring Hill with the other. … The beneficial result of all this bold management of Schofield, November 29th, was apparent the next day in the battle of Franklin. Hood fought that great battle practically without his artillery. He only had the two batteries which he took with him on his detour to Spring Hill. Those two he used. … But his vast supply of artillery had all been detained at Columbia too long to be of any service at the time and place it was most needed. … The Federal troops left Spring Hill in the night for Franklin, ten miles distant. Early in the morning of November 30th they began to arrive at Franklin, and were placed in position covering the town. Early the same morning the Confederates moved up from Spring Hill, following hard upon the rearmost of the Federals. … {3543} General Stanley says, in his official report: 'From one o'clock until four in the evening, the enemy's entire force was in sight and forming for attack. Yet, in view of the strong position we held, and reasoning from the former course of the rebels during the campaign, nothing appeared so improbable as that they would assault.'" The assault was made, however, with a terrible persistency which proved the ruin of Hood's army, for it failed. "The Confederate loss in this dreadful battle can be estimated from data given. There is good authority for stating the killed at 1,750. The usual proportion of killed and wounded is four or five to one. This would make the killed and wounded not less than 7,000 or 8,000. The attacking force numbered full 20,000. … Hood's loss was, indeed, more than one-third of the attacking force. The Federal loss was much smaller, being 1,222 killed and wounded. … One of the features of this battle was the enormous expenditure of ammunition [100 wagon loads] in the short time of its duration. … The expenditure of so much ammunition produced a dense smoke, which hung over the field, and brought on sudden darkness, like an eclipse. So noticeable was this phenomenon, it is mentioned in all the official reports. … In the darkness of the night the battle ended. The Confederates desisted, and the Federal line became quiet. … In their front, and so near that the outstretched hand could almost reach them, were thousands of men in the agonies of death. The wail that went up from that field as the thunder of the battle ceased can never be forgotten by those who heard it. … The [Federal] troops were quietly withdrawn before midnight. A silent rapid march brought them to Nashville the next morning, and weary with fighting and marching they bivouacked in the blue grass pastures under the guns of Fort Negley."

_T. Speed, The Battle of Franklin (Sketches of War History, Ohio Commandery L. L. of the United States, volume 3). _

ALSO IN: _T. B. Van Horne, Life of General George H. Thomas, chapter 13._

_J. B. Hood, Advance and Retreat, chapters 10-17._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (November-December: Georgia). Sherman's March to the Sea.

"It was at Alatoona, probably, that Sherman first realized that, with the forces at his disposal, the keeping open of his line of communications with the North would be impossible if he expected to retain any force with which to operate offensively beyond Atlanta.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (September-October: Georgia).

He proposed, therefore, to destroy the roads back to Chattanooga, when all ready to move, and leave the latter place garrisoned. … Sherman thought Hood would follow him, though he proposed to prepare for the contingency of the latter moving the other way while he was moving south, by making Thomas strong enough to hold Tennessee and Kentucky. I myself [writes General Grant] was thoroughly satisfied that Hood would go north, as he did. On the 2d of November I telegraphed Sherman authorizing him definitely to move according to the plan he had proposed: that is, cutting loose from his base, giving up Atlanta and the railroad back to Chattanooga. … Atlanta was destroyed so far as to render it worthless for military purposes before starting, Sherman himself remaining over a day to superintend the work and see that it was well done. Sherman's orders for this campaign were perfect. Before starting, he had sent back all sick, disabled and weak men, retaining nothing but the hardy, well-inured soldiers to accompany him on his long march in prospect. … The army was expected to live on the country. … Each brigade furnished a company to gather supplies of forage and provisions for the command to which they belonged. … The skill of these men, called by themselves and the army 'bummers,' in collecting their loads and getting back to their respective commands, was marvellous."

_U. S. Grant, Personal Memoirs, chapter 59 (volume 2)._

All preparations being completed, General Sherman caused the foundries, mills and shops of every kind in Rome to be destroyed on the 10th of November, and "started on the 12th with his full staff from Kingston to Atlanta. … As Sherman rode towards Atlanta that night he met railroad trains going to the rear with furious speed. He was profoundly impressed with the strange aspect of affairs: two hostile armies marching in opposite directions, each in the full belief that it was achieving a final and conclusive result in the great war. 'I was strongly inspired,' he writes, 'with a feeling that the movement on our part was a direct attack upon the rebel army and the rebel capital at Richmond, though a full thousand miles of hostile country intervened; and that for better or worse it would end the war.' The result was a magnificent vindication of this soldierly intuition. His army consisted in round numbers of 60,000 men, the most perfect in strength, health, and intelligence that ever went to war. He had thoroughly purged it of all inefficient material, sending to the rear all organizations and even all individuals that he thought would be a drag upon his celerity or strength. His right wing, under Howard, consisted of the Fifteenth Corps, commanded by Osterhaus, in the absence of John A. Logan; and the Seventeenth Corps, commanded by Frank P. Blair, Jr. The left wing, commanded by Slocum, comprised the Fourteenth Corps, under Jeff. C. Davis, and the Twentieth Corps, under A. S. Williams. In his general orders he had not intimated to the army the object of their march. 'It is sufficient for you to know,' he said, 'that it involves a departure from our present base and a long, difficult march to a new one.' His special field orders are a model of clearness and conciseness. The habitual order of march was to be, wherever practicable, by four roads as nearly parallel as possible, and converging at points to be indicated from time to time. There was to be no general train of supplies; behind each regiment should follow one wagon and one ambulance; a due proportion of wagons for ammunition and provision behind each brigade; the separate columns were to start at seven in the morning and make about fifteen miles a day. The army was to subsist liberally on the country; forage parties, under the command of discreet officers, were to gather near the routes traveled whatever was needed by the command, aiming to keep in the wagons a reserve of at least ten days' provisions; soldiers were strictly forbidden to enter dwellings of inhabitants or commit trespasses; the power to destroy mills, houses, cotton gins, etc., was intrusted to corps commanders alone. {3544} No destruction of property was to be permitted in districts where the army was unmolested; but relentless devastation was ordered in case of the manifestation of local hostility by the shooting of soldiers or the burning of bridges. … Precisely at seven o'clock on the morning of the 16th of November the great army started on its march. A band struck up the anthem of 'John Brown's body lies a-moldering in the grave'; the soldiers caught up the refrain, and, to the swelling chorus of 'Glory, Hallelujah,' the great march was begun. The month that followed will always remain to those 60,000 men the most romantic and inspiring memory of their lives. The weather was favorable all the way; to veterans the marches were of reasonable length; the work of destroying the Southern railroads was so easy to their experienced hands that it hardly delayed the day's march. With the exception of the affair on the 22d of November, when P. J. Phillips with a division of Smith's Georgia troops attacked C. C. Walcutt's Brigade, which was marching as the rear-guard of the right wing at Griswoldville, and met with a severe repulse, and a series of cavalry fights between Wheeler and Kilpatrick near 'Waynesboro', there was no fighting to do between Atlanta and Savannah. A swarm of militia and irregular cavalry hung, it is true, about the front and flank of the marching army, but were hardly a source of more annoyance than so many mosquitoes would have been. The foragers brought in every evening their heterogeneous supplies from the outlying plantations, and although they had to defend themselves every day from scattered forces of the enemy, the casualties which they reported each evening were insignificant. The utmost efforts of Sherman and his officers to induce the negroes to remain quietly at home were not entirely successful. The promise of freedom which was to come to them from the victory of the Union cause was too vague and indefinite to content them. … The simple-hearted freedmen gathered in an ever-increasing cloud in rear of the army; and when the campaign was over they peopled the sea-islands of Georgia and furnished, after the war, the principal employment of the Freedmen's Commission. The march produced an extraordinary effervescence throughout the Confederacy. If words could avail anything against heavy battalions, Sherman would have been annihilated in his first day's march. … As Sherman drew near to Milledgeville on the 23d of November the Georgia Legislature passed an act to levy the population en masse; but this act of desperate legislation had no effect in checking the march of the 'Yankees,' and the Governor, State officers, and Legislature fled in the utmost confusion as Sherman entered the place. The Union general occupied the Executive Mansion for a day; some of the soldiers went to the State House, organized themselves into a constituent assembly, and after a spirited mock-serious debate, repealed the ordinance of secession. Sherman took the greatest possible pains to prevent any damage to the city and marched out on the 24th on the way to Millen. … Finding it impossible to stop him, the Georgia State troops by sharp marching had made their way directly to the vicinity of Savannah, where Sherman himself arrived and invested the city from the Savannah to the little Ogeechee River, on the 10th of December."

_J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay, Abraham Lincoln, volume 9, chapter 20._

On the 13th, Fort McAllister, which commanded the Ogeechee River, was stormed and taken by Hazen's division, and communication was opened with Admiral Dahlgren, and with General Foster, the Union commander at Port Royal. On the 17th, General Hardee, the Confederate commander at Savannah, refused a demand for the surrender of the city, but on the night of the 20th he escaped, with his forces, and on the 22d General Sherman telegraphed to President Lincoln: "I beg to present to you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah, with 150 heavy guns and plenty of ammunition; also about 25,000 bales of cotton."

ALSO IN: _J. D. Cox, The March to the Sea (Campaigns of the Civil War, volume 10), chapter 3._

_O. O. Howard, and others, Sherman's March (Battles and Leaders, volume 4)._

_W. T. Sherman, Memoirs, chapter 20 (volume 2)._

_G. W. Nichols, The Story of the Great March._

_W. B. Hazen, Narrative of Military Service, chapters 21-22._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (December: Tennessee). The Battle of Nashville and the destruction of Hood's army.

After the battle of Franklin Hood went forward to Nashville, with his badly shaken army, and invested that place.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (NOVEMBER: TENNESSEE).