Read Ebook: Recollections of the Civil War With the Leaders at Washington and in the Field in the Sixties by Dana Charles A Charles Anderson

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DEAR SIR: I inclose you a copy of your order of appointment and the order fixing your compensation, with a letter to Generals Sumner, Grant, and Rosecrans, and a draft for one thousand dollars. Having explained the purposes of your appointment to you personally, no further instructions will be given unless specially required. Please acknowledge the receipt of this, and proceed as early as possible to your duties.

Yours truly, EDWIN M. STANTON.

C. A. DANA, Esq., New York.

My commission read:

ORDERED, That C. A. Dana, Esq., be and he is hereby appointed special commissioner of the War Department to investigate and report upon the condition of the pay service in the Western armies. All paymasters and assistant paymasters will furnish to the said commissioner for the Secretary of War information upon any matters concerning which he may make inquiry of them as fully and completely and promptly as if directly called for by the Secretary of War. Railroad agents, quartermasters, and commissioners will give him transportation and subsistence. All officers and persons in the service will aid him in the performance of his duties, and will afford him assistance, courtesy, and protection. The said commissioner will make report to this department as occasion may require.

The letters of introduction and explanation to the generals were identical:

GENERAL: Charles A. Dana, Esq., has been appointed a special commissioner of this department to investigate and report upon the condition of the pay service in the Western armies. You will please aid him in the performance of his duties, and communicate to him fully your views and wishes in respect to that branch of the service in your command, and also give to him such information as you may deem beneficial to the service. He is specially commended to your courtesy and protection. Yours truly,

EDWIN M. STANTON.

I started at once for Memphis, going by way of Cairo and Columbus.

I sent my first dispatch to the War Department from Columbus, on March 20th. It was sent by a secret cipher furnished by the War Department, which I used myself, for throughout the war I was my own cipher clerk. The ordinary method at the various headquarters was for the sender to write out the dispatch in full, after which it was translated from plain English into the agreed cipher by a telegraph operator or clerk retained for that exclusive purpose, who understood it, and by another it was retranslated back again at the other end of the line. So whatever military secret was transmitted was at the mercy always of at least two outside persons, besides running the gantlet of other prying eyes. Dispatches written in complex cipher codes were often difficult to unravel, unless transmitted by the operator with the greatest precision. A wrong word sometimes destroyed the sense of an entire dispatch, and important movements were delayed thereby. This explains the oft-repeated "I do not understand your telegram" found in the official correspondence of the war period.

I have become familiar since the war with a great many ciphers, but I never found one which was more satisfactory than that which I used in my messages to Mr. Stanton. In preparing my message I first wrote it out in lines of a given number of words, spaced regularly so as to form five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten columns. My key contained various "routes," to be followed in writing out the messages for transmission. Thus, a five-column message had one route, a six-column another, and so on. The route was indicated by a "commencement word." If I had put my message into five columns, I would write at the beginning the word "Army," or any one in a list of nine words. The receiver, on looking for that word in his key, would see that he was to write out what he had received in lines of five words, thus forming five columns; and then he was to read it down the fifth column, up the third, down the fourth, up the second, down the first. At the end of each column an "extra" or "check" word was added as a blind. A list of "blind" words was also printed in the key, with each route, which could be inserted, if wished, at the end of each line so as still further to deceive curious people who did not have the key. The key contained also a large number of cipher words. Thus, P. H. Sheridan was "soap" or "Somerset"; President was "Pembroke" or "Penfield." Instead of writing "there has been," I wrote "maroon"; instead of secession, "mint"; instead of Vicksburg, "Cupid." My own cipher was "spunky" or "squad." The days, months, hours, numerals, and alphabet all had ciphers.

The only message sent by this cipher to be translated by an outsider on the route, so far as I know, was that one of 4 P.M., September 20, 1863, in which I reported the Union defeat at Chickamauga. General R. S. Granger, who was then at Nashville, was at the telegraph office waiting for news when my dispatch passed through. The operator guessed out the dispatch, as he afterward confessed, and it was passed around Nashville. The agent of the Associated Press at Louisville sent out a private printed circular quoting me as an authority for reporting the battle as a total defeat, and in Cincinnati Horace Maynard repeated, the same day of the battle, the entire second sentence of the dispatch, "Chickamauga is as fatal a name in our history as Bull Run."

This premature disclosure to the public of what was only the truth, well known at the front, caused a great deal of trouble. I immediately set on foot an investigation to discover who had penetrated our cipher code, and soon arrived at a satisfactory understanding of the matter, of which Mr. Stanton was duly informed. No blame could attach to me, as was manifest upon the inquiry; nevertheless, the sensation resulted in considerable annoyance all along the line from Chattanooga to Washington. I suggested to Mr. Stanton the advisability of concocting a new and more difficult cipher, but it was never changed, so far as I now remember.

It was from Columbus, Ky., on March 20, 1863, that I sent my first telegram to the War Department. I did not remain in Columbus long, for there was absolutely no trustworthy information there respecting affairs down the river, but took a boat to Memphis, where I arrived on March 23d. I found General Hurlbut in command. I had met Hurlbut in January, when on my cotton business, and he gave me every opportunity to gather information concerning the operations against Vicksburg. Four different plans for reaching the city were then on foot, the essential element of all of them being to secure for the army on the high ground behind the city a foothold whence it could strike, and at the same time be supplied from a river base. The first and oldest and apparently most promising of these plans was that of the canal across the neck of the peninsula facing Vicksburg, on the Louisiana side. When I reached Memphis this canal was thought to be nearly done.

The third and fourth routes proposed for getting behind Vicksburg--namely, by Yazoo Pass and Steele's Bayou--were attracting the chief attention when I reached Memphis. Yazoo Pass opened from the eastern bank of the Mississippi at a point about one hundred and fifty miles above Vicksburg into Moon Lake, and thence into the Coldwater River. Through the Coldwater and the Tallahatchie the Yazoo River was reached. If troops could follow this route and capture Haynes's Bluff, fourteen miles from the mouth of the Yazoo, Vicksburg at once became untenable. The Yazoo Pass operation had begun in February, but the detachment had had bad luck, and on my arrival at Memphis was lying up the Yallabusha waiting for re-enforcements and supplies.

An attempt was being made also to reach the Yazoo by a roundabout route through Steele's Bayou, Deer Creek, the Rolling Fork, and the Big Sunflower. Grant had learned of this route only a short time before my arrival, and had at once sent Sherman with troops and Admiral Porter with gunboats to attempt to reach the Yazoo. On March 27th reports came to Memphis that Sherman had landed twenty regiments on the east bank of the Yazoo above Haynes's Bluff, and that the gunboats were there to support him. Reports from other points also were so encouraging that the greatest enthusiasm prevailed throughout the army, and General Grant was said to be dead sure he would have Vicksburg within a fortnight.

Five days later, however, we heard at Memphis that there had been a series of disasters in these different operations, that the Yazoo Pass expedition was definitely abandoned, and that General Grant had an entirely new plan of campaign.

I had not been long at Memphis before I decided that it was impossible to gather trustworthy news there. I had to rely for most of my information on the reports brought up the river by occasional officers, not all of whom were sure of what they told, and on the stories of persons coming from the vicinity of the different operations. Occasionally an intelligent planter arrived whom I was inclined to believe, but on the whole I found that my sources of information were few and uncertain. I accordingly suggested to Mr. Stanton, three days after my arrival, that I would be more useful farther down the river. In reply he telegraphed:

C. A. DANA, Esq., Memphis, Tenn., via Cairo:

Your telegrams have been received, and although the information has been meager and unsatisfactory, I am conscious that arises from no fault of yours. You will proceed to General Grant's headquarters, or wherever you may be best able to accomplish the purposes designated by this department. You will consider your movements to be governed by your own discretion, without any restriction.

As soon after receiving his telegram as I could get a boat I left Memphis for Milliken's Bend, where General Grant had his headquarters. I reached there at noon on April 6th.

The Mississippi at Milliken's Bend was a mile wide, and the sight as we came down the river by boat was most imposing. Grant's big army was stretched up and down the river bank over the plantations, its white tents affording a new decoration to the natural magnificence of the broad plains. These plains, which stretch far back from the river, were divided into rich and old plantations by blooming hedges of rose and Osage orange, the mansions of the owners being inclosed in roses, myrtles, magnolias, oaks, and every other sort of beautiful and noble trees. The negroes whose work made all this wealth and magnificence were gone, and there was nothing growing in the fields.

For some days after my arrival I lived in a steamboat tied up to the shore, for though my tent was pitched and ready, I was not able to get a mattress and pillow. From the deck of the steamer I saw in those days many a wonderful and to me novel sight. One I remember still. I was standing out on the upper deck with a group of officers, when we saw far away, close to the other shore of the river, a long line of something white floating in the water. We thought it was foam, but it was too long and white, and that it was cotton which had been thrown into the river, but it was too straight and regular. Presently we heard a gun fired, then another, and then we saw it was an enormous flock of swans. They arose from the water one after the other, and sailed away up the river in long, curving, silver lines, bending and floating almost like clouds, and finally disappearing high up in the air above the green woods on the Mississippi shore. I suppose there were a thousand of them.

I had not been long at Milliken's Bend before I was on friendly terms with all the generals, big and little, and one or two of them I found were very rare men. Sherman especially impressed me as a man of genius and of the widest intellectual acquisitions. Every day I rode in one direction or another with an officer, inspecting the operations going on. From what I saw on my rides over the country I got a new insight into slavery, which made me no more a friend to that institution than I was before. I had seen slavery in Maryland, Kentucky, Virginia, and Missouri, but it was not till I saw these great Louisiana plantations with all their apparatus for living and working that I really felt the aristocratic nature of the institution, and the infernal baseness of that aristocracy. Every day my conviction was intensified that the territorial and political integrity of the nation must be preserved at all costs, no matter how long it took; that it was better to keep up the existing war as long as was necessary, rather than to make arrangement for indefinite wars hereafter and for other disruptions; that we must have it out then, and settle forever the question, so that our children would be able to attend to other matters. For my own part, I preferred one nation and one country, with a military government afterward, if such should follow, rather than two or three nations and countries with the semblance of the old Constitution in each of them, ending in wars and despotisms everywhere.

As soon as I arrived at Milliken's Bend, on April 6th, I had hunted up Grant and explained my mission. He received me cordially. Indeed, I think Grant was always glad to have me with his army. He did not like letter writing, and my daily dispatches to Mr. Stanton relieved him from the necessity of describing every day what was going on in the army. From the first neither he nor any of his staff or corps commanders evinced any unwillingness to show me the inside of things. In this first interview at Milliken's Bend, for instance, Grant explained to me so fully his new plan of campaign--for there was now but one--that by three o'clock I was able to send an outline of it to Mr. Stanton. From that time I saw and knew all the interior operations of that toughest of tough jobs, the reopening of the Mississippi.

The new project, so Grant told me, was to transfer his army to New Carthage, and from there carry it over the Mississippi, landing it at or about Grand Gulf; to capture this point, and then to operate rapidly on the southern and eastern shore of the Big Black River, threatening at the same time both Vicksburg and Jackson, and confusing the Confederates as to his real objective. If this could be done he believed the enemy would come out of Vicksburg and fight.

The first element in this plan was to open a passage from the Mississippi near Milliken's Bend, above Vicksburg, to the bayou on the west side, which led around to New Carthage below. The length of navigation in this cut-off was about thirty-seven miles, and the plan was to take through with small tugs perhaps fifty barges, enough, at least, to transfer the whole army, with artillery and baggage, to the other side of the Mississippi in twenty-four hours. If necessary, troops were to be transported by the canal, though Grant hoped to march them by the road along its bank. Part of McClernand's corps had already reached New Carthage overland, and Grant was hurrying other troops forward. The canal to the bayou was already half completed, thirty-five hundred men being at work on it when I arrived.

The second part of the plan was to float down the river, past the Vicksburg batteries, half a dozen steamboats protected by defenses of bales of cotton and wet hay; these steamboats were to serve as transports of supplies after the army had crossed the Mississippi.

Perhaps the best evidence of the feasibility of the project was found in the fact that the river men pronounced its success certain. General Sherman, who commanded one of the three corps in Grant's army, and with whom I conversed at length upon the subject, thought there was no difficulty in opening the passage, but that the line would be a precarious one for supplies after the army was thrown across the Mississippi. Sherman's preference was for a movement by way of Yazoo Pass, or Lake Providence, but it was not long before I saw in our daily talks that his mind was tending to the conclusion of General Grant. As for General Grant, his purpose was dead set on the new scheme. Admiral Porter cordially agreed with him.

An important modification was made a few days after my arrival in the plan of operations. It was determined that after the occupation of Grand Gulf the main army, instead of operating up the Big Black toward Jackson, should proceed down the river against Port Hudson, co-operating with General Banks against that point, and that after the capture of Port Hudson the two united forces should proceed against Vicksburg.

There seemed to be only one hitch in the campaign. Grant had intrusted the attack on Grand Gulf to McClernand. Sherman, Porter, and other leading officers believed this a mistake, and talked frankly with me about it. One night when we had all gathered at Grant's headquarters and were talking over the campaign very freely, as we were accustomed to do, both Sherman and Porter protested against the arrangement. But Grant would not be changed. McClernand, he said, was exceedingly desirous of the command. He was the senior of the other corps commanders. He was an especial favorite of the President, and the position which his corps occupied on the ground when the movement was first projected was such that the advance naturally fell to its lot; besides, he had entered zealously into the plan from the first, while Sherman had doubted and criticised, and McPherson, whom Grant said he would really have much preferred, was away at Lake Providence, and though he had approved of the scheme, he had taken no active part in it.

I believed the assignment of this duty to McClernand to be so dangerous that I added my expostulation to those of the generals, and in reporting the case to Mr. Stanton I wrote: "I have remonstrated so far as I could properly do so against intrusting so momentous an operation to McClernand."

Mr. Stanton replied: "Allow me to suggest that you carefully avoid giving any advice in respect to commands that may be assigned, as it may lead to misunderstanding and troublesome complications." Of course, after that I scrupulously observed his directions, even in extreme cases.

As the days went on everybody, in spite of this hitch, became more sanguine that the new project would succeed. For my part I had not a doubt of it, as one can see from this fragment written from Milliken's Bend on April 13th to one of my friends:

"Like all who really know the facts, I feel no sort of doubt that we shall before long get the nut cracked. Probably before this letter reaches New York on its way to you the telegraph will get ahead of it with the news that Grant, masking Vicksburg, deemed impregnable by its defenders, has carried the bulk of his army down the river through a cut-off which he has opened without the enemy believing it could be done; has occupied Grand Gulf, taken Port Hudson, and, effecting a junction with the forces of Banks, has returned up the river to threaten Jackson and compel the enemy to come out of Vicksburg and fight him on ground of his own choosing. Of course this scheme may miscarry in whole or in parts, but as yet the chances all favor its execution, which is now just ready to begin."

FOOTNOTE:

BEFORE AND AROUND VICKSBURG.

The hard job of reopening the Mississippi--Admiral Porter runs the Confederate batteries--Headquarters moved to Smith's plantation--Delay and confusion in McClernand's command--The unsuccessful attack on Grand Gulf--The move to the east shore--Mr. Dana secures a good horse.

On the new lines adopted by General Grant, the work went on cheeringly, though every day changes were made in the details. I spent my days in riding from point to point, noting the progress. I went out often with Colonel G. G. Pride, the engineer officer, in whose mess I was, and who was superintending the construction of the canal which led from Duckport to the bayou. The work on this canal was a curious sight to see, for there was a force equal to five regiments at the digging, while a large number of pioneers were engaged in clearing the bayou beyond. The canal was opened on April 13th, and the authorities agreed that there was no reason to doubt its usefulness, though the obstructions in the bayou were so numerous that it was thought that it would require several days more to clear a passage for tugs and barges.

One of my most interesting trips from Milliken's Bend was made with Major James H. Wilson to view the casemated batteries our engineers were constructing on the shore opposite Vicksburg. They hoped with the thirty-pound Parrotts they were putting in to be able to destroy any building in the town. From behind the levee of the peninsula we were able with our glasses to examine the fortifications of Vicksburg.

The best look I had at that town, however, while I was at Milliken's Bend was not from the peninsula opposite, but from a gunboat. On April 12th I went down with a flag of truce to the vicinity of Vicksburg, so that I got a capital view. It was an ugly place, with its line of bluffs commanding the channel for fully seven miles, and battery piled above battery all the way.

Admiral Porter's arrangements for carrying out the second part of Grant's scheme--that is, running the Vicksburg batteries--were all completed by April 16th, the ironclads and steamers being protected in vulnerable parts by bulwarks of hay, cotton, and sand bags, and the barges loaded with forage, coal, and the camp equipment of General McClernand's corps, which was already at New Carthage. No doubt was felt that the design was known in Vicksburg, and it was arranged that Admiral Porter should open fire there with all his guns as he swept past the town, and that the new batteries on the levee opposite the city should also participate. Admiral Porter was to go with the expedition on a small tug, and he invited me to accompany him, but it seemed to me that I ought not to get out of my communications, and so refused. Instead, I joined Grant on his headquarters boat, which was stationed on the right bank of the river, where from the bows we could see the squadron as it started, and could follow its course until it was nearly past Vicksburg.

Just before ten o'clock on the night of April 16th the squadron cast loose its moorings. It was a strange scene. First a mass of black things detached itself from the shore, and we saw it float out toward the middle of the stream. There was nothing to be seen except this big black mass, which dropped slowly down the river. Soon another black mass detached itself, and another, then another. It was Admiral Porter's fleet of ironclad turtles, steamboats, and barges. They floated down the Mississippi darkly and silently, showing neither steam nor light, save occasionally a signal astern, where the enemy could not see it.

The vessels moved at intervals of about two hundred yards. First came seven ironclad turtles and one heavy armed ram; following these were two side-wheel steamers and one stern-wheel, having twelve barges in tow; these barges carried the supplies. Far astern of them was one carrying ammunition. The most of the gunboats had already doubled the tongue of land which stretches northeasterly in front of Vicksburg, and they were immediately under the guns of nearly all the Confederate batteries, when there was a flash from the upper forts, and then for an hour and a half the cannonade was terrific, raging incessantly along the line of about four miles in extent. I counted five hundred and twenty-five discharges. Early in the action the enemy put the torch to a frame building in front of Vicksburg to light up the scene and direct his fire.

About 12.45 A.M. one our steamers, the Henry Clay, took fire, and burned for three quarters of an hour. The Henry Clay was lost by being abandoned by her captain and crew in a panic, they thinking her to be sinking. The pilot refused to go with them, and said if they would stay they would get her through safe. After they had fled in the yawls, the cotton bales on her deck took fire, and one wheel became unmanageable. The pilot then ran her aground, and got upon a plank, on which he was picked up four miles below.

The morning after Admiral Porter had run the Vicksburg batteries I went with General Grant to New Carthage to review the situation. We found the squadron there, all in fighting condition, though most of them had been hit. Not a man had been lost.

As soon as we returned to Milliken's Bend Grant ordered that six transport steamers, each loaded with one hundred thousand rations and forty days' coal, should be made ready to run the Vicksburg batteries. The order was executed on the night of the 22d. The transports were manned throughout, officers, engineers, pilots, and deck hands, by volunteers from the army, mainly from Logan's division. This dangerous service was sought with great eagerness, and experienced men had been found for every post. If ten thousand men had been wanted instead of one hundred and fifty, they would have engaged with zeal in the adventure. In addition to bulwarks of hay, cotton, and pork barrels, each transport was protected by a barge on each side of it. Orders were to drop noiselessly down with the current from the mouth of the Yazoo, and not show steam till the enemy's batteries began firing, when the boats were to use all their legs. The night was cloudy, and the run was made with the loss of one of the transports, the Tigress, which was sunk, and a few men wounded.

The day after these transports with supplies ran the Vicksburg batteries General Grant changed his headquarters to Smith's plantation, near New Carthage. All of McClernand's corps, the Thirteenth, was now near there, and that officer said ten thousand men would be ready to move from New Carthage the next day. McPherson's corps, which had been busy upon the Lake Providence expedition and other services, but which had been ordered to join, was now, except one division, moving over from Milliken's Bend. Sherman's corps, the Fifteenth, which had been stationed at Young's Point, was also under marching orders to New Carthage.

Grant's first object now was to cross the Mississippi as speedily as possible and capture Grand Gulf before it could be re-enforced; but first it was necessary to know the strength of this point. On the 22d Admiral Porter had gone down with his gunboats and opened fire to ascertain the position and strength of the batteries. He reported them too strong to overcome, and earnestly advised against a direct attack. He suggested that the troops either be marched down the west side from New Carthage to a point where they could be ferried over the Mississippi just below Grand Gulf, or that they be embarked on the transports and barges and floated past the batteries in the night.

The day after Grant changed his headquarters to Smith's plantation he went himself with General Porter to reconnoiter Grand Gulf. His reconnoissance convinced him that the place was not so strong as Admiral Porter had supposed, and an attack was ordered to be made as soon as the troops could be made ready, the next day, April 26th, if possible.

An irritating delay occurred then, however. McClernand's corps was not ready to move. When we came to Smith's plantation, on the 24th, I had seen that there was apparently much confusion in McClernand's command, and I was astonished to find, now that he was ordered to move across the Mississippi, that he was planning to carry his bride with her servants, and baggage along with him, although Grant had ordered that officers should leave behind everything that could impede the march.

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