INDIANAPOLIS, March 18th, 1862.
EDITOR GAZETTE. – On my return from Davenport ten days since I joined a friend in a trip to Dixie in which I saw much to interest me, and though your numerous war correspondents have given you information of events happening in the region visited, I will venture to send a few lines. We left this place Friday evening, the 8th inst., for Louisville, and the following morning took cars from that city for Bowling Green. It was the first day that Passengers were allowed to leave Southward-bound without a pass. Though an examination of baggage was still made. A few camps in the immediate vicinity of Louisville, and throng of soldiers on the train made one thoroughly conscious of the troublesome times in which we live. Near [Munfordville] the desolation caused by the late military occupation of the country was spread everywhere, and the soil with the constant treading it had undergone had become a vast bed of mortar like mud. The soldiers left there, whom we saw, were those who had been too sick to join the forward movement made a few weeks since and now their sunken eyes, sallow skins and drawling gait as they moved told too sorrowfully the tail of their sufferings. It was the saddest sight I ever witnessed.
Green River Bridge which we crossed was one of the finest structures of the kind in the country, but it too had suffered from the hands of the Philistines, one of its fine stone piers having been destroyed by order of the renegade, General Buckner. Our forces have constructed a substantial trestle to span the broken section of the bridge and our trains have passed on it for sometime. Not far from here my attention was called to notice a field in which, in December last, a battle had been fought, between some three hundred of the Indiana Thirty Second (German regiment) and a much larger force of the rebels, Texan Rangers. The Indianians fought bravely and repulsed their foe. An instance that occurred in the fight is worth recording as characterizing the bravery and endurance sometimes shown in our miscalled degenerate day. A lieutenant of the thirty-second was surrounded by the enemy; he fought them vigorously, and laid eight of his assailants in the dust, where they were afterwards found around his own corpse. At last, with several mortal wounds, he gathered his remaining strength for a final effort and seizing the bridle of a horse with his hand, he made a desperate leap and caught the cheek of the foe between his teeth and held his death grip so firmly as to unsaddle and bring him to the ground.
As the train approached Bowling Green the conductor pointed out the various spots of interest near that place. The bridges for the railroad and turnpike have been destroyed, and the nature of the cannel and the bottom of the Barren river, with some other unfavorable circumstances, will occasion a good deal of delay in repairing them. At present the train stops about half a mile north of the river, and fully a mile from the town. The south side of the river has a precipitous bank, admirably adapted for defence, and three hills in the vicinity of commanding height, enclosing a triangular area, have been fortified. The highest in the outskirts of the village is known as College Hill – so named, no doubt, in honor of a prospective college building, the half reared walls of which have been used to add strength and extent to the fortifications. The works are of inferior construction, unable to withstand a close pressed investment. The parapet is built mainly of stone and logs, either of which scattered by a common shot are quite as bad to the defenders as a bomb shell.
The town is a God-forsaken place, having been more than exhausted by the rebels, and not being in much of a way for improvements since the advent of the Federals. Whoever enters it from the north pays tribute to a sea of mud in crossing the river bottom and finds himself at the only hotel, in an outrageously dirty hole. I saw the marks of several of the shells that Gen. Mitchell sent into the place on his first approach, and that made the rebel magnates “skedaddle” so promptly. A marvel of the town is a Union man, the owner of a livery stable and a number of other connected buildings, to which the chivalry were in the act of applying the torch on the day above mentioned, when a shell with Gen. Mitchell’s compliments hit the building, doing slight damage. The event was ominous, and the fleeing traitors left the buildings unburned. The shell is kept by the owner of them, and will no doubt, recall in days to come, the fortunate hit it made. The Louisville and Nashville R. R. had here a fine passenger and freight station, round houses, &c., which with six locomotives, machinery, &c., were burned. In the ruins I saw pieces of guns, beef bones with the burnt meat still adhering where they had burned a considerable quantity of quartermaster stores, which they had no time to remove – rum, ruin, everywhere.
The passage from Bowling Green south is made with a half burned locomotive, which the rebels failed to destroy entirely or to steal, it is weak, and necessitates a delay that compelled waiting until the next day before proceeding on our journey. – The track is very bad in places, having just been repaired. The arrival of our forces was a fortunate occurrence in this relation, the rebels having impressed the citizens along the line to begin a certain day to destroy it utterly. But they miscalculated. Gen. Mitchell had a word to say, which retarded the operation. Ten miles from Nashville a temporary bridge obstructed our journey, it being too frail to allow a locomotive to pass, we waited an hour or two till a train going north to met us, the cars were pushed over, engines changed, and about 4 p. m. we were on the banks of the Cumberland, waiting the ferry boat to land us in the Rock City.
It was Sunday afternoon; the weather delightfully pleasant, particularly so to one who had just left snow-drifts and storms in Iowa. The streets were thronged with gaily dressed contrabands, grinning with delight at the novelty of their surroundings, and strongly contrasting with the grim acidity of their masters. At the St. Cloud we gained comfortable quarters, soiled the hotel register with Yankee signatures, but a few pages from the entries of the chivalry from all parts of the confederacy. The halls and porches of the house were thronged with officers of our army; a few citizens mingled with them without intercourse.
I remained in Nashville two days, which afforded me a chance to see the city, and draw some inferences in relation to the loyalty of the citizens. But few of them have any feeling worth the name of Unionism. Many of them will take the oath of allegiance for business purposes, and violate it so soon as a chance occurs. I saw numbers of them come from the office of the Provost Marshal, walking hurriedly away, and watching the sidewalk, too sneaking to look an honest man in the face, and by their conduct marking their allegiance as spurious. I met many acquaintances, old comrades in camp, who are connected with Gen. Buell’s army, from whom I learned much in relation to our forces and movements, which is contraband information under present orders.
From Nashville we took steamer for Ft. Donelson, and experienced to our heart’s content the annoyance and uncertainty of traveling in a border country. The captain of the boat was two days in learning whether his departure would be for Somerset, four hundred miles up the Cumberland, Cairo, the upper Tennessee, or Pittsburgh. At every stopping place with a telegraph station, a new order would be received changing the route, and the captain was certainly the most harassed man I have seen in some time.
We were at Fort Donelson half a day, which afforded a chance to see the works and visit points of most interest. I obtained as trophies a couple of Secesh knives, known as “Mississippi tooth-picks.” They are barbarous in manufacture and looks, characterizing well with the institution they were to defend. I will not attempt any descriptions of the locality. The works are strong for their kind, and were surrendered through cowardice. The late improvements in the materiel of war are such as to make, I believe, all field works untenable against a well prepared assailant. The ground there is well fitted for defence from assault, and yet so characterized that sharp shooters can approach and silence the artillery unless it be protected by casemates, saying nothing of the virtue of the assailing shells.
At Smithland we changed steamers for Paducah and Cairo. Slept all night on the guards of a steamboat that was loaded with sick for the hospitals below. The sight of the poor sufferers was terrible, and prompted the bitterest anathemas against the promoters of the rebellion.
At Paducah, while awaiting departure for Cairo, a steamer from Missouri river came up alongside and stopped for a few minutes. It had aboard the Eleventh Iowa, bound for some point on the Tennessee. I went aboard, and met for a moment with Lt. Col. Hall and lady. Found them in good health, though saddened with the loss of their only child. The boys of the 11th were in the best of spirits. Numbers of them recognized me as from Davenport, and entrusted letters to my care to be mailed at Cairo. I showed them one of my “Mississippi tooth-picks” which did not intimidate them in the least. They were well pleased with the sight, and will no doubt if a chance is offered them, win specimens for themselves.
At Cairo I visited the gunboat Louisville, met unexpectedly an old ‘comrade in arms,” and was shown everything of interest about here. Saw where the shot hit her in the Fort Donelson engagement, etc. They are truly a terrible engine of ware, and have in addition to their cannon an abundance of hand weapons to resist any attempt to board them – pikes, pistols, cutlasses, and an arrangement for throwing hot water in a quantity quite irresistible. The boats expected to leave immediately for Island No 10. I wanted much to go with them, but engagements here prevented it. Since then they have made the attack.
I arrived here after just one week’s absence amply repaid for the trip by the knowledge gained for the operations of active war. Yours,
D. TORREY.
– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Saturday Morning, March 22, 1862, p. 2
