Passing on through
Frankfort and Russellville, Alabama, and notifying the boys to be ready to
start to camps next morning. I stopped for the night with my uncle, Ben
Hancock, who lived four miles north of Russellville. Starting back the 18th, we
rejoined our company the 19th at Jacinto.
SOURCE: Richard R.
Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History
of the Second Tennessee Confederate Cavalry, p. 170
* How vivid "to
my memory still" is that night! The pickets were stationed thus: B. A.
Hancock, in front; W. W. Hawkins, a few paces to the rear; while I was a few
paces to the rear of Hawkins. We expected to be relieved, as the custom was, in
two hours. But we were very much disappointed and somewhat chagrined at having
to sit there on our horses all that long night. Do not remember of doing the
like any more during the war.
SOURCE: Richard R.
Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History
of the Second Tennessee Confederate Cavalry, p. 170
A scout went out to
Burnsville and learned that one hundred and five Federal cavalry had been there
the evening before. So all except the pickets went back to camps.
Colonel McCulloch's
Battalion and ours were all the troops stationed near Jacinto.
SOURCE: Richard R.
Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History
of the Second Tennessee Confederate Cavalry, p. 170
Captain McKnight, I,
and ten others, went out to Burnsville on a scout. We met, about two and a half
miles from Burnsville, two of Beauregard's scouts. They told Captain McKnight
that they had seen, early that morning, about five hundred Federal cavalry
eight miles beyond Burnsville. After starting a dispatch back to Colonel
McNairy, we went on to Burnsville. We had been there only a short time when the
enemy came in sight. Their advance guard, about fifty, made a dash at us as
though they were bent on our capture. They followed us about two and a half
miles almost at full speed. As we were well mounted we all made our escape.
They fired a few shots at us, but we escaped without injury. I do not now
remember of being in another such race during the war. About two miles further
we found our battalion in ambush. In a short time McCulloch's Battalion, with one
six-pounder, came up. Expecting the Federals were advancing, and finding a
favorable position within about three miles of Burnsville, McCulloch's
Battalion and a part of ours were deployed in battle line, while the other
portion of our battalion (with McKnight's Company in front) moved on to meet
the enemy. Going about one mile further, we halted and formed in ambush, while
a small squad went on in search of the enemy. Going on to Burnsville, and
finding the enemy had fallen back, we all returned to Jacinto a little before
dark.
SOURCE: Richard R.
Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History
of the Second Tennessee Confederate Cavalry, p. 170-1
The non-commissioned
officers of our company were elected. The election resulted as follows:
John D. McLin, First
Sergeant; A. B. McKnight, Second; R. R. Hancock, Third; and J. C. McAdoo,
Fourth. (About one year afterward Sam Walker was made First Sergeant.) W. W.
Harrison, X. A. Baxter, W. W. Hawkins and C. Dougherty were, I think, the
corporals.
SOURCE: Richard R.
Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee Confederate
Cavalry, p. 171
McKnight's Company
went on a scout up the Tuscumbia road, but brought back no news of interest.
SOURCE: Richard R.
Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee Confederate
Cavalry, p. 172
About noon
McCulloch's Battalion moved out toward Burnsville, and just before sundown ours
followed. We found McCulloch within two miles of Burnsville. The Federals had
been in town, but had fallen back. We dismounted, hitched our horses, and
remained there all night.
SOURCE: Richard R.
Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee Confederate
Cavalry, p. 172
After returning to
Jacinto and cooking three days' rations, our battalion moved down to within one
mile of Booneville, where our wagons had been stationed since we took quarters
in the vacant houses of Jacinto, May 5th. We heard that the Federals were
marching down east of Jacinto, in the direction of Booneville, but we thought
that that must be a false report. Corinth was evacuated that night.
SOURCE: Richard R.
Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee Confederate
Cavalry, p. 172
Between daylight and
sunup about twelve hundred Federal cavalry surrounded Booneville, a. small
village station on the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. There was one train of cars
there and about five or six hundred Confederates, including the sick and their
nurses, but there was no armed force there to defend the place. So the Federals
had quietly taken possession of the place, set fire to the depot and train of
cars, and had collected all the Confederates that were able to travel, and perhaps
a number that were not really able, and formed them in line ready to march off,
when about eighty of our battalion came upon the scene. Small as our squad was,
we made a daring charge and released the prisoners. How they (the prisoners)
did come yelling towards us! We then dropped back into the woods near by, and
after a little skirmishing, the Federals withdrew in time for us to save two
boxes of cars and also the engine. The train was loaded with arms and
ammunition. Our loss was one killed (Culwell), three wounded, and it was said
that the Federals carried off two prisoners, though the prisoners were not from
our battalion. The Federal loss was two killed, several wounded, and nine
prisoners. How those prisoners whom we released did appreciate being set at
liberty! And they did not forget it, but continued to express their gratitude
to our battalion when they happened to meet with any of us along through the
war. The release of five or six hundred prisoners, in the hands of twelve
hundred Federals, by not exceeding eighty Confederates, was no small feat.
The Confederate Army
was moving south along the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, in the direction of
Booneville. So there was no little excitement in Confederate ranks on account
of the explosion of the bombshells in the burning cars, being taken for heavy
cannonading. However, they soon learned better, for it was not long before the
head of the column passed Booneville. Our sick had to get out, or be taken out,
of the depot to avoid being burned alive, so they were lying about on the
ground, some dead and others in a dying condition; so the scene was anything
but a pleasant one to look upon. Our battalion moved back to the same place we
camped the night before.
SOURCE: Richard R.
Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee Confederate
Cavalry, p. 172-3
After the rear of
the infantry passed we moved on down, covering the retreat on the left flank.
Two companies of Colonel Forrest's Regiment were with us. We bivouacked about
six miles from Boonville. Our wagons moved on with the main army.
SOURCE: Richard R.
Hancock, Hancock's Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee Confederate
Cavalry, p. 173
. . . Stopped at Law School on my way down, with Mr. Ruggles, and conferred a little with the graduating class. The young men have expressed the wish to have a sermon preached to them before their Commencement (the 23d instant) on the duties of their profession; very becoming and graceful, especially as it is quite spontaneous. Hawks was applied to, but after nibbling a little at the invitation, declined it. He is lazy, and it may be, too, that he himself was aware that the subject demanded heavier metal than his smooth, wordy rhetoric. So the class instructed us to apply to Vinton, and we called at Trinity Church after service. Vinton sees plainly enough that it is an opening not to be despised, and accepts readily. . . . Afterwards with Lewis Rutherfurd and William Betts, about degrees to be conferred at this Law Commencement. We propose to LL.D. Judges Ingraham, Woodruff, and Daly, who have consented to act as a committee to examine the essays and examination papers and award the prizes. Vivat the Law School! I hope to make a great deal out of it.
The Baltimore Convention of conservative fogies and fossils nominates Bell for President and Edward Everett for Vice-President. Not of much practical importance probably, but I for one am tired of talk about niggers and feel much inclined to vote for anybody who promises to ignore that subject.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins
and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong,
Vol. 3, pp. 25-6
. . . Universal sympathy for poor Fowler, except from a very few Buchananizing Democrats. Isaiah Rynders has not yet succeeded in arresting him, and probably won’t succeed if he can help it.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins
and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong,
Vol. 3, p. 26
Chicago Convention is in full boil and bubble. Strong opposition to Seward, but he will be nominated at last. That wily old Thurlow Weed, the most adroit of wire-pullers, seldom fails when he takes hold of a case in earnest. General Dix is to be Fowler’s successor in the post office. Butterworth of the assay office will decline the appointment.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins
and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong,
Vol. 3, p. 27
Thy Nose, O W. H. Seward, is out of joint! The Chicago Convention nominates Lincoln and Hamlin. They will be beat, unless the South perpetrate some special act of idiocy, arrogance, or brutality before next fall.
Lincoln will be strong in the Western states. He is unknown here. The Tribune and other papers commend him to popular favor as having had but six months’ schooling in his whole life; and because he cut a great many rails, and worked on a flatboat in early youth; all which is somehow presumptive evidence of his statesmanship. The watchword of the campaign is already indicated. It is to be "Honest Abe’’ (our candidate being a namesake of the Father of the Faithful). Mass-meetings and conventions and committees are to become enthusiastic and vociferous whenever an orator says Abe. But that monosyllable does not seem to me likely to prove a word of power. "Honest Abe’’ sounds less efficient than "Fremont and Jessie,’’ and that failed four years ago.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins
and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong,
Vol. 3, p. 28
The park below the reservoir begins to look intelligible. Unfinished still, and in process of manufacture, but shewing the outline now of what it is to be. Many points are already beautiful. What will they be when their trees are grown and I’m dead and forgotten?
One thinks sometimes that one would like re-juvenescence, or a new birth. One would prefer, if he could, to annihilate his past and commence life, say in this a.d. 1860, and so enjoy longer acquaintance with this era of special development and material progress, watch the splendid march of science on earth, share the benefits of the steam engine and the electric telegraph, and grow up with this park—which is to be so great a fact for the young men and maidens of New York in 1880, if all goes well and we do not decompose into anarchy meanwhile. The boy of that year is likely to have larger privileges and a better time than were conceded to the boy of 1830. Central Park and Astor Library and a developed Columbia University promise to make the city twenty years hence a real center of culture and civilization, furnishing privileges to youth far beyond what it gave me in my boyhood.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins
and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong,
Vol. 3, p. 30
Invited to be a vice-president of a great Republican ratification meeting tomorrow night. Declined on the plea of “engagements,” but the truth is I do not know whether I am a Republican at all.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins
and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong,
Vol. 3, p. 30
Seward’s special friends grumble at Lincoln’s nomination, but seem disposed to support it in good faith. It looks to me as if Honest Abe were going to run well. The Democrats must patch up their domestic difficulties, and select a strong and available candidate, or they will be beat.
SOURCE: Allan Nevins
and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong,
Vol. 3, p. 30
As in the mediæval epoch, and some time thereafter, anatomists and physiologists experimented on the living villeins, that is, on peasantry, serfs, and called this process experientia in anima vili, so this naïve administration experiments in civil and in military matters on the people's life-blood.
McClellan, stirred up by the fools and peacocks around him, has sent to the War Department a project of a showy uniform for himself and his staff. It would be to laugh at, if it were not insane. McClellan very likely read not what he signed.
The army is in sufficient rig and organization to take the field; but nevertheless McClellan has not yet made a single movement imperatively prescribed by the simplest tactics, and by the simplest common sense, when the enemy is in front. Not a single serious reconnoissance to ascertain the real force of the enemy, to pierce through the curtain behind which the rebels hide their real forces. It must be conceded to the rebel generals that they show great skill in humbugging us. Whenever we try to make a step we are met by a seemingly strong force (tenfold increased by rumors spread by the secessionists among us, and gulped by our stupidity), which makes us suppose a deep front, and a still deeper body behind. And there is the humbug, I am sure. If, on such an extensive line as the rebels occupy, the main body should correspond to what they show in front, then the rebel force must muster several hundreds of thousands. Such large numbers they have not, and I am sure that four-fifths of their whole force constitutes their vanguard, and behind it the main body is chaff. The rebels treat us as if we were children.
McClellan fortifies Washington; Fremont, St. Louis; Anderson asks for engineers to fortify some spots in Kentucky. This is all a defensive warfare, and not so will the rebel region be conquered. We lose time, and time serves the rebels, as it increases their moral force. Every day of their existence shows their intrinsic vitality.
The theory of starving the rebels out is got up by imbeciles, wholly ignorant of such matters; wholly ignorant of human nature; wholly ignorant of the degree of energy, and of abnegation, which criminals can display when firmly decided upon their purpose. This absurdity comes from the celebrated anaconda Mississippi-Atlantic strategy.
Oh! When in Poland, in 1831, the military chiefs concentrated all the forces in the fortifications of Warsaw, all was gone. Oh for a dashing general, for a dashing purpose, in the councils of the White House! The constitutional advisers are deaf to the voice of the people, who know more about it than do all the departments and the military wiseacres. The people look up to find as big brains and hearts as are theirs, and hitherto the people have looked up in vain. The radical senators, as a King, a Trumbull, a Wade, Wilson, Chandler, Hale, etc., the true Republicans in the last session of Congress — further, men as Wadsworth and the like, are the true exponents of the character, of the clear insight, of the soundness of the people.
McClellan, and even the administration, seem not to realize that pure military considerations cannot fulfil the imperative demands of the political situation.
October 6th. — I met McClellan; had with him a protracted conversation, and could look well into him. I do not attach any value to physiognomies, and consider phrenology, craniology, and their kindred, to be rather humbugs; but, nevertheless, I was struck with the soft, insignificant inexpressiveness of his eyes and features. My enthusiasm for him, my faith, is wholly extinct. All that he said to me and to others present was altogether unmilitary and inexperienced. It made me sick at heart to hear him, and to think that he is to decide over the destinies and the blood of the people. And he already an idol, incensed, worshipped, before he did anything whatever. McClellan may have individual courage, so has almost every animal; but he has not the decision and the courage of a military leader and captain. He has no real confidence in the troops; has scarcely any idea how battles are fought; has no confidence in and no notion of the use of the bayonet. I told him that, notwithstanding his opinion, I would take his worst brigade of infantry, and after a fortnight's drill challenge and whip any of the best rebel brigades.
Some time ago it was reported that McClellan considered this war had become a duel of artillery. Fools wondered and applauded. I then protested against putting such an absurdity in McClellan's mouth; now I must believe it. To be sure, every battle is in part a duel of artillery, but ends or is decided by charges of infantry or cavalry. Cannonading alone never constituted and decided a battle. No position can be taken by cannonading alone, and shells alone do not always force an enemy to abandon a position. Napoleon, an artillerist par excellence, considered campaigns and battles to be something more than duels of artillery. The great battle of Borodino, and all others, were decided when batteries were stormed and taken. Eylau was a battle of charges by cavalry and by infantry, besides a terrible cannonading, etc., etc. McClellan spoke with pride of the fortifications of Washington, and pointed to one of the forts as having a greater profile than had the world-renowned Malakoff. What a confusion of notions, what a misappreciation of relative conditions!
I cannot express my sad, mournful feelings, during this conversation with McClellan. We spoke about the necessity of dividing his large army into corps. McClellan took from the table an Army Almanac, and pointed to the names of generals to whom he intended to give the command of corps. He feels the urgency of the case, and said that Gen. Scott prevented him from doing it; but as soon as he, McClellan, shall be free to act, the division will be made. So General Scott is everywhere to defend senile routine against progress, and the experience of modern times.
The rebels deserve, to the end of time, many curses from outraged humanity. By their treason they forced upon the free institutions of the North the necessity of curtailing personal liberty and other rights; to make use of depotism for the sake of selfdefence.
The enemy concentrates and shortens his lines, and McClellan dares not even tread on the enemy's heels. Instead of forcing the enemy to do what we want, and upturn his schemes, McClellan seemingly does the bidding of Beauregard. We advance as much as Beauregard allows us to do. New tactics, to be sure, but at any rate not Napoleonic.
The fighting in the West and some small successes here are obtained by rough levies; and those imbecile, regular martinets surrounding McClellan still nurse his distrust in the volunteers. All the wealth, energy, intellect of the country, is concentrated in the hands of McClellan, and he uses it to throw up entrenchments. The partisans of McClellan point to his highly scientific preparations his science. He may have some little of it, but half-science is worse than thorough ignorance. Oh! for one dare-devil in the Lyon, or in the old-fashioned Yankee style. McClellan is neither a Napoleon, nor a Cabrera, nor a Garibaldi.
Mason and Slidell escaped to Havana on their way to Europe, as commissioners of the rebels. According to all international definitions, we have the full right to seize them in any neutral vessel, they being political contrabands of war going on a publicly avowed errand hostile to their true government. Mason and Slidell are not common passengers, nor are they political refugees invoking the protection of any neutral flag. They are travelling commissioners of war, of bloodshed and rebellion; and it is all the same in whatever seaport they embark. And if the vessel conveying them goes from America to Europe, or vice versa, Mr. Seward can let them be seized when they have left Havana, provided he finds it expedient.
We lose time, and time is all in favor of the rebels. Every
day consolidates their existence — so to speak, crystallizes them. Further —
many so-called Union men in the South, who, at the start, opposed secession, by
and by will get accustomed to it. Secession daily takes deeper root, and
will so by degrees
become un fait accompli. Mr. Adams, in his official
relations with the English government, speaks of the rebel pirates as of lawful
privateers. Mr. Seward admonished him for it. Bravo!
It is so difficult, not to say impossible, to meet an American who concatenates a long series of effects and causes, or who understands that to explain an isolated fact or phenomenon the chain must be ascended and a general law invoked. Could they do it, various bunglings would be avoided, and much of the people's sacrifices husbanded, instead of being squandered, as it is done now.
Fremont going overboard! His fall will be the triumph of the pro-slavery party, headed by the New York Herald, and supported by military old fogies, by martinets, and by double and triple political and intellectual know-nothings. Pity that Fremont had no brilliant military capacity. Then his fall could not have taken place.
Mr. Seward is too much ruled by his imagination, and too hastily discounts the future. But imagination ruins a statesman. Mr. Seward must lose credit at home and abroad for having prophesied, and having his prophecies end in smoke. When Hatteras was taken (Gen. Scott protested against the expedition), Mr. S. assured me that it was the beginning of the end. A diplomat here made the observation that no minister of a European parliamentary government could remain in power after having been continually contradicted by facts.
Now, Mr. Seward devised these collateral missions to Europe. He very little knows the habit and temper of European cabinets if he believes that such collateral confidential agents can do any good. The European cabinets distrust such irresponsible agents, who, in their turn, weaken the influence and the standing of the genuine diplomatic agents. Mr. S., early in the year, boasted to abolish, even in Europe, the system of passports, and soon afterwards introduced it at home. So his imagination carries him to overhaul the world. He proposes to European powers a united expedition to Japan, and we cannot prevent at home the running of the blockade, and are ourselves blockaded on the Potomac. All such schemes are offsprings of an ambitious imagination. But the worst is, that every such outburst of his imagination Mr. Seward at once transforms into a dogma, and spreads it with all his might. I pity him when I look towards the end of his political career. He writes well, and has put down the insolent English dispatch concerning the habeas corpus and the arrests of dubious, if not treacherous, Englishmen. Perhaps Seward imagines himself to be a Cardinal Richelieu, with Lincoln for Louis XIII. (provided he knows as much history), or may be he has the ambition to be considered a Talleyrand or Metternich of diplomacy. But if any, he has some very, very faint similarity with Alberoni. He easily outwits here men around him; most are politicians as he; but he never can outwit the statesmen of Europe. Besides, diplomacy, above all that of great powers, is conceived largely and carried on a grand scale; the present diplomacy has outgrown what is commonly called (but fallaciously) Talleyrandism and Metternichism.
McClellan and the party which fears to make a bold advance on the enemy make so much fuss about the country being cut up and wooded; it proves only that they have no brains and no fertility of expedients. This country is not more cut up than is the Caucasus, and the woods are no great, endless, primitive forests. They are rather groves. In the Caucasus the Russians continually attack great and dense forests; they fire in them several round shots, then grape, and then storm them with the bayonet; and the Circassians are no worse soldiers than are the Southrons.
European papers talk much of mediation, of a peaceful arrangement, of compromise. By intuition of the future the Northern people know very well the utter impossibility of such an arrangement. A peace could not stand; any such peace will establish the military superiority of the arrogant, reckless, piratical South. The South would teem with hundreds of thousands of men ready for any piratical, fillibustering raid, enterprise, or excursion, of which the free States north and west would become the principal theatres. Such a marauding community as the South would become, in case of success, will be unexampled in history. The Cylician pirates, the Barbary robbers, nay, the Tartars of the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, were virtuous and civilized in comparison with what would be an independent, man-stealing, and man-whipping Southern agglomeration of lawless men. The free States could have no security, even if all the thus called gentlemen and men of honor were to sign a treaty or a compromise. The Southern pestilential influence would poison not only the North, but this whole hemisphere. The history of the past has nothing to be compared with organized, legal piracy, as would become the thus-called Southern chivalry on land and on sea; and soon European maritime powers would be obliged to make costly expeditions for the sake of extirpating, crushing, uprooting the nest of pirates, which then will embrace about twelve millions, — every Southern gentleman being a pirate at heart.
This is what the Northern people know by experience and by intuition, and what makes the people so uneasy about the inertia of the administration.
Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Seward, Gen. Scott, and other great men, are soured against the people and public opinion for distrusting, or rather for criticising their little display of statesmanlike activity. How unjust! As a general rule, of all human sentiments, confidence is the most scrutinizing one. If confidence is bestowed, it wants to perfectly know the why. But from the outset of this war the American people gave and give to everybody full, unsuspecting confidence, without asking the why, without even scrutinizing the actions which were to justify the claim.
Up to this day Secesh is the positive pole; the Union is the negative, — it is the blow recipient. When, oh, when will come the opposite? When will we deal blows? Not under McClellan, I suspect.
SOURCE: Adam Gurowski, Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862, pp. 104-114
1 John Sherman was then, at the age of fourteen, junior rodman in an engineer corps, engaged in the improvement of the Muskingham River, Ohio. Particulars of his life will follow in introducing his letters.
SOURCE: Rachel Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, pp. 2-3
