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Address to Army Associations
and


Miscellaneous Papers
to Civil and Spanish


Relating
Wars


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by


Major General GRENVILLE M. DODGE


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Address to Army Associations
and 
Miscellaneous Papers Relating
to Civil and Spanish Wars
by 
Major General GRENVILLE M. DODGE.


1904
UNZ & COMPANY,
New York




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CONTENTS.
PAGE.
Battle of Atlanta................................................     3
Execution of Confederate Spy Sam'l Davis........'..................... 23
Banquet in honor of Gen. O. O. Howard................................ 29
Address to  Sixteenth  Army  Corps..................................  34
Address to Army of the Southwest....................................   39
Address to Army  of the  Tennessee....................................  44
Remarks at Loyal Legion, New York Commandery on Death of President M cK inley.....................................................  53
Norwich University Banquet........................................    56
Remarks at Army of Potomac Reunion............................... 59
O n  " W ater  Cure.....................................................  63
Address to N. Y. Commandery on Cruelties in Philippines............... 65'
The Last Years Work, and joining of tracks of the Union Pacific and
Central Pacific Railways........................................ 71
Gen. Dodge recalls beginning of Omaha and Nebraska.................. 80
Resolutions presented  to  Gen'l Dodge..................................  86
Remarks to Gen. Dodge Camp, Sons of Veterans.....................    92
Unveiling of Logan Monument.......................................   94




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BATTLE OF ATLANTA..FOUGHT JULY 22nd, I864.
Paper read before New York Commandery of M. O. L. L.,
BY
MAJOR-GENERAL GRENVILLE M. DODGE.
COMPANIONS:
On the I7th day of July, i864, Gen'l John B. Hood relieved Gen'l
Joseph E. Johnston in command of the confederate army in front of
Atlanta, and on the 20th, Hood opened an attack upon Sherman's
right commanded by Gen'l Thomas. The attack was a failure and
resulted in a great defeat to Hood's Army and the disarrangement of
all his plans.
On the evening of the 2ist of July, Gen'l Sherman's army had
closed up to within two miles of Atlanta, and on that day Force's
Brigade of Leggett's Division of Blair's Seventeenth Army Corps
carried a prominent hill known as Bald or Leggett's Hill that gave us
a clear view of Atlanta, and placed that city within range of our guns.
It was a strategic point, and unless the swing of our left was stopped it
would dangerously interfere with Hood's communications towards the
south. Hood fully appreciated this, and determined upon his celebrated attack in the rear of Gen'l Sherman's Army.
On the 22d of July, the Army of the Tennessee was occupying the
rebel intrenchments, its right resting very near the Howard House,
south of the Augusta Railroad, thence to Leggett's Hill, which had
been carried by Force's assault on the evening of the 2ist. From




4


BATTLE OF ATLANTA


this hill Giles A. Smith's Division of the Seventeenth  Army
Corps stretched out southward on a road that occupied this ridge,
with a weak flank in air. To strengthen this flank, by order of Gen'l
McPherson I sent on the evening of the 2ISt one Brigade of Fuller's
Division, the other being left at Decatur to protect our parked trains.
Fuller camped his Brigade about half a mile in the rear of the extreme
left and at right angles to Blair's lines and commanding the open
ground and valley of the forks of Sugar Creek, a position that proved
very strong in the battle. Fnller did not go into line, simply bivouacked ready to respond to any call.
On the morning of the 22d of July, Gen'l McPherson called at my
headquarters, and gave me verbal orders in relation to the movement
of the 2nd, Sweeney's Division of my, the Sixteenth Corps, which had
been crowded out of the line by the contraction of our lines as we neared
Atlanta, and told me that I was to take position on the left of the line
that Blair had been instructed to occupy and intrench that morning,
and cautioned me about protecting my flank very strongly. McPherson evidently thought that there would be trouble on that flank for he
rode out to examine it himself.
I moved Sweeney in the rear of our army, on the road leading from
the Augusta Railway, down the east branch of Sugar Creek to near
where it forks. Then turning west, the road crosses the west branch
of Sugar Creek just back where Fuller was camped, and passed up
through a strip of woods and through Blair's lines near where his left
was refused  Up this road Sweeney marched until-he reached Fuller,
when he halted, waiting until the line I had selected on Blair's proposed
new left could be intrenched, so that at mid-day, July 22d, the position
of the Army of the Tennessee was as follows: one Division of the
Fifteenth across and north of the Augusta Railway facing Atlanta, the
balance of the Fifteenth, and all of the Seventeenth Corps behind
intrenchments running south of the Railway along a gentle ridge with
a gentle slope and clear valley facing Atlanta in front, and another
clear valley in the rear The Sixteenth Corps was resting on the road
described, entirely iri the rear of the Seventeenth and Fifteenth Corps
and facing from Atlanta. To the left and left rear the country was
heavily wooded. The enemy, therefore was enabled under cover of
the forest, to approach close to the rear of our lines.
On the night of July 2rst, Hood had transferred Hardee's Corps
and two Divisions of Wheeler's Cavalry to our rear going around our
left flank, Wheeler attacking Sprague's Brigade Sixteenth Army Corps
at Decatur, where our trains were parked. At daylight, Stewart's and
Cheatham's Corps and the Georgia militia were withdrawn closer to
Atlanta, and in a position to attack simultaneously with Hardee, the




BATTLE OF ATLANTA


5


plan thus involving the destroying of the Army of the Tennessee by
attacking it in rear and front and the capturing of all its trains corraled
at Decatur. Hardee's was the largest Corps in Hood's Army and
according to Hood there were thus to move upon the Army of the
Tennessee about 4o,o00 troops.
Hood's order of attack was for Hardee to form entirely in the rear
of the Army of the Tennessee, but Hardee claims that he met Hood
on the night of the 2ist; that he was so late in moving his corps that
they changed the plan of attack so that his left was to strike the
Seventeenth Corps. He was to swing his right until he enveloped
and attacked the rear of the Seventeenth and Fifteenth Corps.
Hood stood in one of the batteries of Atlanta where he could see
Blair's left and the front line of the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps.
He says he was astonished to see the attack come on Blair's left
instead of his rear and charges his defeat to that fact, but Hardee
when he swung his right and came out in the open, found the
Sixteenth Corps in line in the rear of our army, and he was as much
surprised to find us there as our army was at the sudden attack in
our rear. The driving back by the Sixteenth Corps of Hardee's made
his corps drift to the left and against Blair, not only to Blair's eft
but into his rear, so that what Hood declares was the cause of his
failure was not Hardee's fault as his attacks on the Sixteenth Corps
were evidently determined, and fierce enough to relieve him from all
blame in that matter.
Historians and others who have written of the Battle of Atlanta
have been mislead by being governed in their data by the first dispatches of General Sherman, who was evidently misinformed, as he
afterwards corrected his dispatches. He stated in the first dispatch
that the attack was at ii A. M., and on Blair's corps, and also that
General McPherson was killed about i i A. M. The fact is Blair was
not attacked until half an hour after the attack upon the Sixteenth
Corps, and McPherson fell at about 2 P. M. General Sherman was
at the Howard House, which was miles away from the scene of
Hardee's attack in the rear, and evidently did not at first comprehend
the terrific fighting that was in progress, and the serious results that
would have been effected had the attack succeeded.
The battle began within fifteen or twenty minutes of 12 o'clock (noon)
and lasted until midnight, and covered the ground from the Howard
House, along the entire front of the Fifteenth (Logan's) Corps, the
Seventeenth (Blair's), and on the front of the Sixteenth, which was
formed in the rear of the Army, and on to Decatur, where Sprague's
Brigade of the Sixteenth Army Corps met and defeated Wheeler's
Cavalry. A distance of about seven miles.




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BATTLE OF ATLANTA


The Army of the Tennessee had present on that day at Atlanta and
Decatur about 26,000 m'n; o,oo000 in the Fifteenth Army Corps, 9,ooo
in the Sixteenth Corps and 7,000 in the Seventeenth, about 21,o00 of  r
these were in line of battle. Three Brigades of the Sixteenth Corps
were absent, the Sixteenth Corps having 5,000 men in a single line
which received the attack of the Three Divisions of Hardee's Corps,
Hardee's left, Cleburn's Division lapping the extreme left of Blair,
and joining Cheatham's Corps which attacked Blair from the Atlanta
front and according to Hood they were joined by the Georgia militia
under General Smith extending down the line in front of the Army of
Ohio and Cumberland, Stewart's Corps occupied the works and held
the lines in front of the Army of the Cumberland. The Sixteenth
Army Corps fought in the open ground; the Fifteenth and Seventeenth behind intrenchments.
Where I stood just at the rear of the Sixteenth Army Corps, I could
see the entire line of that corps, and could look up and see the
enemy's entire front as they emerged from the woods, and I quickly
saw that both of my flanks were overlapped by the enemy. Knowing
General McPherson was some two miles away, I sent a staff
officer to General Giles A. Smith, requesting him to refuse his left
and protect the gap between the Seventeenth Corps and my right,
which he sent word he would do. Later, as the battle progressed,
and I saw no movement on the part of General Smith, I se6t another
officer to inform him that the enemy were passing my right flank,
which was nearly opposite his center, and requested him to refuse his
left immediately, or he would be cut off. This officer (Lieut. D.
Sheffly who belonged to the Signal Corps, and acted as my aide only
for the time being), found, on reaching Smith, that he was just becoming engaged; that he had received orders to hold his line, with a
promise that other troops would be thrown into the gap.
My second messenger Lieut. Sheffly returning over the road upon
which McPherson was a few minutes later shot dead, met the general
on the road with a very few attendants, turned to warn him of his
dangerous position, assuring him that the enemy held the woods and
were advancing. The general paying no heed to his warning and
moving on, my aide turned and followed him. They had proceeded    U
but a short distance into the woods when a sharp command, "Halt,"
was heard from the skirmish line of the rebels. Without heeding the
command, General McPherson and his party wheeled their horses
and at that moment a heavy volley was poured in, killing McPherson
and so frightening the horses that they became unmanageable and
plunged into the underbrush in different directions. My aide became
separated from the general and the rest of the party, and was knocked




BATTLE OF ATLANTA


7


from his horse by coming in contact with a tree, and lay for some
time in an unconscious condition on the ground. As soon as he was
sufficiently recovered he returned on foot to me, having lost his horse
and equipments. Of General McPherson he saw nothing after his
fall. His watch, crushed by contact with the tree, was stopped at two
minutes past 2 o'clock, which fixed the time of General McPherson's
death.
General McPherson could not have left his point of observation
more than a few minutes when I detected the enemy's advance in the
woods some distance to my right, and between that flank and General
Blair's rear. Fuller quickly changed front with a portion of his
brigade to confront them, and pushing promptly to the attack captured their skirmish line and drove back their main forces. Upon the
persons of some of these prisoners we found McPherson's papers,
field-glass, etc., which conveyed to me the first knowledge I had of
his death, or rather, as I then supposed, of his capture by the enemy,
and seeing that the papers were important I sent them by my chief of
staff with all haste to General Sherman.
General McPherson, it seems, had just witnessed the decisive grapple of the Sixteenth Corps with the charging columns of the enemy,
and, as probably conveying his own reflections at that moment, I
quote the language of General Strong, the only staff officer present
with him at that critical moment.
"The General and myself," said Strong, "accompanied only by our
orderlies, rode on and took positions on the right of Dodge's line,
and witnessed the desperate assaults of Hood's army.
"The divisions of Generals Fuller and Sweeney were formed in a
single line of battle in the open fields, without cover of any kind
(Fuller's division on the right), and were warmly engaged. The
enemy, massed in columns three or four lines deep, moved out of the
dense timber several hundred yards from General Dodge's position,
and after gaining fairly the open fields, halted and opened a rapid fire
upon the Sixteenth Corps. They, however, seemed surprised to find
our infantry in line of battle, prepared for attack, and after facing for
a few minutes the destructive fire from the divisions of Generals
Fuller and Sweeney, fell back in disorder to the cover of the woods.
Here, however, their lines were quickly reformed, and they again
advanced, evidently determined to carry the position.
"The scene at this time was grand and impressive. It seemed to us
that every mounted officer of the attacking column was riding at the
front of, or on the right or left of, the first line of battle. The
regimental colors waved and fluttered in advance of the lines, and not
a shot was fired by the rebel infantry, although the movement was




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BAT'TLE OF ATLAN TA


covered by a heavy and well-directed fire from artillery, which was
posted in the woods and on higher ground, and which enabled the
guns to bear upon our troops with solid shot and shell, firing over the.
attacking column.
"It seemed impossible, however, for the enemy to face the sweeping,
deadly fire from Fuller's and Sweeney's divisions, and the guns of the
Fourteenth Ohio and Welker's batteries of the Sixteenth Corps fairly
mowed great swaths in the advancing columns. They showed great
steadiness, and closed up the gaps and preserved their allignments,
but the iron and leaden hail which was poured upon them was too
much for flesh and blood to stand, and, before reaching the center of
the open field, the columns were broken up and thrown into great
confusion. Taking advantage of this, Dodge with portions of Fuller's
and Sweeney's divisions, with bayonets fixed, charged the enemy and
drove them back to the woods, taking many prisoners.
"General McPherson's admiration for the steadiness and determined
bravery of the Sixteenth Corps.was unbounded. General Dodge held
the key to the position.
"Had the Sixteenth Corps given way the rebel army would have
been in the rear of the Seventeenth and Fifteenth Corps, and would
have swept like an avalanche over our supply trains, and the  osition
of the Army of the Tennessee would have been very critical, - hough,
without doubt, the result of the battle would have been in our favor.
because the armies of the Cumberland and Ohio were close at hand,
and the enemy would have been checked and routed further on."
General Blair in his official report of the battle says, "I witnessed the
first furious assault upon the Sixteenth Army Corps, and its prompt
and gallant repulse. It was a fortunate circumstance for that whole
army that the Sixteenth Army Corps occupied the position I have
attempted to describe, at the moment of the attack, and although it
does not become me to comment upon the brave conduct of the
officers and men of that Corps, still I can not refrain from expressing
my admiration for the manner in which the Sixteenth Corps met and   L
repulsed the repeated and persistent attacks of the enemy."
The Sixteenth Corps has a record in that battle which we seldom
see in the annals of war. It met the shock of battle and fired the last  '
shot late that night, as the enemy stubbornly yielded its grasp on
Bald Hill. It fought on four parts of the field, and everywhere with
equal success; it lost no gun that it took into the engagement, and its
losses were almost entirely in killed and wounded-the missing having been captured at Decatur through getting mired in a swamp.
At no time during the Atlanta campaign was there present in the
Sixteenth Corps more than two small divisions of three brigades each




BATTLE OF ATLANTA


9


and at this time these two divisions were widely scattered; on the
Atlanta field only ten regiments and two batteries were present, three
entire brigades being absent from the corps. It was called upon to
meet the assault of at least three divisions or nine brigades, or at the
least forty-nine regiments, all full to the utmost that a desperate
*   ~emergency could swell them, impelled by the motive of the preconcerted surprise, and orders from their commander at all hazards to
sweep over any and all obstructions; while, on the other hand, the
force attacked and surprised was fighting without orders, guided only
by the exigency of the moment. Their captures represented fortynine different regiments of the enemy. How many more regiments
were included in those nine brigades I have never been able to learn.
The fact that this small force, technically, if not actually, in march, in
a perfectly open field, with this enormously superior force leaping
upon them from the cover of dense woods, was able to hold its ground
and drive its assailants, pell-mell, back to the cover of the woods again,
proves that when a great battle is in progress, or a great emergency
occurs, no officer can tell what.the result may be when he throws in
his forces, be they 5,000 or 20,000 men; and it seems to me to be impossible to draw the line that gives the right to a subordinate officer
to use his own judgement in engaging an enemy when a great battle
is within his hearing.
Suppose the Sixteenth Corps, with less than 5,000 men, seeing at
-least three times their number in their front, should have retreated,
instead of standing and fighting as it did, what would have been the
result? I say that in all my experience in life, until the two forces
struck and the Sixteenth Corps stood firm, I never passed more anxious
moments.
Sprague's Brigade, of the same corps, was engaged at the same time
within hearing, but on a different field at Decatur, fighting and stubbornly holding that place, knowing that if he failed the trains massed
there and en route from Roswell, would be captured. His fight was
a gallant and, sometimes, seemingly almost hopeless one-giving
ground inch by inch, until, finally, he obtained a position that he
could not-be driven from, and one that protected the entire trains of
It  ~the army.
As Hardee's attack fell upon the Sixteenth Army Corps, his left
Division (Celburn's) lapped over and beyond Blair's left, and swung
around his left front; they poured down through the gap between the
left of the Seventeenth and the right of the Sixteenth Corps, taking
Blair in front flank and rear. Cheatham's Corps moved out of Atlanta
and attacked in Blair's front. Gen'l Giles A. Smith commanded
Blair's left Division his right connecting with Leggett at Bald Hill,




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BATITLE OF ATLANTA


where Leggett's Division held the line until they connected with the
Fifteenth Corps, and along this front the battle raged with great fury.
As Cleburn advanced along the open space between the Sixteenth 
and Seventeenth Corps they cut off from Blair's left and captured a
portion of two regiments of his command, and forced the Seventeenth
Corps to form new lines utilizing the old intrenchments thrown up by  *
the enemy, fighting first on one side and then on the other, as the
attack would come from Hardee in the rear or Cheatham in the front,
until about 3.30 P. M. when evidently after a lull, an extraordinary
effort was made by the rebels to wipe out Giles A. Smith's Division
and capture Leggett's Hill, the enemy approaching under cover of the
woods until they were within fifty yards of Smith's temporary position,
when they pressed forward until the fight became a hand to hand
conflict across the trenches occupied by Smith, the troops using
bayonet freely and the officers their swords. This attack failed; it
was no doubt timed to occur at the same time that Cheatham's Corps,
attacked from the Atlanta front, which Leggett met. The brunt of
Cheatham's attack was against Leggett's Hill, the key to the position
of that portion of the Army of the Tennessee. General Giles A. Smith's
Division had to give up the works they occupied and fall into line at
right angles with Leggett's Division, Leggett's Hill being the apex
of the formation; and here, for three quarters of an hour, more desperate fighting was done around this position than I can describe.
Up to midnight the enemy occupied one side of the works while we
occupied the other, neither side giving way until Hood saw that the
whole attack was a failure when those who were on the outside of the
works finally surrendered to us. Their attack at this angle was a
determined and resolute one, advancing up to our breastworks on the
crest of the hill, planting their flag side by side with ours, and fighting
hand to hand until it grew so dark that nothing could be seen, but the
flash of the guns from the opposite side of the works. The ground
covered by these attacks was. literally strewn with the dead of both
sides. The loss of Blair's Corps was I8oi killed, wounded an(l miss- 
ing. Blair's left struck in the rear flank, and front gave away slowly,
gradually, fighting for every inch of ground, until their left was
opposite the right flank of the Sixteenth Corps; then they halted, and
held the enemy refusing to give another inch.
It would be difficult in all the annals of war, to find a parallel to the
fighting of the Seventeenth Corps; first from one side of its works, and
then from the other, one incident of which was that of Colonel Belknap,
of the Union Side, reaching over the works, seizing the Colonel of the
forty-fifth Alabama, and drawing him over the breastworks making
him a prisoner of war.




BATTLE OF ATLANTA


II


About 4 P. M. Cheatham's Corps were ordered by Hood to again
attack;they directed their assault this time to the front of the Fifteenth
Corps, using the Decatur wagon road and railway as a guide, and
came forward in solid masses, meeting no success until they slipped
through the rear of the Fifteenth Corps by a deep cut used by the
railway passing through our intrenchments.
As soon as they reached our rear, Lightburn's Division of the
Fifteenth Corps, became partially panic stricken, and fell back, giving
up the intrenchments for the whole front of this Division, the enemy
capturing the celebrated Degress Battery of 20-pounders, and two
guns in advance of our lines. The officers of Lightburn's Division
rallied it in the line of intrenchments, just in the rear where they had
moved from in the morning.
General Logan was then in command of the Army of the Tennessee.
iHe rode over to where I was, and I sent Mercer's Brigade of the
Second Division under the guidance of Major Edward Jonas, my
A. D. C. to the aid of the Fifteenth Corps.
Of the performance of that brigade on that occasion, I quote the
words of that staff officer, Major Jonas.
"I conducted Mercer's Brigade to the point where needed; arrived
at the railroad, he at once deployed and charged, all men of the
Fifteenth Corps at hand joining with him. Mercer's Brigade
recaptured the works and the guns. Old Colonel M. was slightly
wounded, and his celebrated  horse "Billy" killed.  By your
direction I said to General Morgan L. Smith (temporarily in command
of the Fifteenth Corps): General Dodge requests that you return this
brigade at the earliest practicable moment, as there is every indication
of renewed assault on our own line, and, after saying that your request
would be respected, General Smith added: 'Tell General Dodge that
his brigade (Mercer's) has done magnificently, and that it shall have
full credit in my report.'" Afterwards one of Mercer's officers-Captain Boyd, I think —in trying his skill as an artillerist, cracked one of
the recaptured guns. At the same moment of Mercer's attack in
front General Woods' Division of Fifteenth Army Corps under the
eye of General Sherman attacked the confederates occupying our
intrenchments inr flank and Williamson's Brigade joined Mercer's in
recapturing our line and the batteries-the Fourth Iowa Infantry
taking a conspicuous part.
In this battle Colonel Mercer and many of his men whom he so
gallantly led had served their time, and were awaiting transportation
home. Eloquent words have been written and spoken all over the
land in, behalf of the honor, of the bravery of the soldier, but where is
the word spoken or written that can say more for the soldier than the




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BATTLE OF ATLANTA


action of these men on that field? They were out of service, they had
written that they were coming home, and their eyes and hearts were
toward the North; many an anxious eye was looking for the boy who   r
voluntarily laid down his life that day; and many a devoted father,
mother or sister has had untold trouble to obtain recognition in the
war department because the soldier's time had expired; he was mustered 
out, waiting to go home, and was not known on the records; but on
that day he fought on three different parts of the field, without a
thought except for his cause and his country.
The continuous attacks of Cheatham made no other impression on
the line. Our men were behind the intrenchments and the slaughter of
the enemy was something fearful. General J. C. Brown who commanded the Confederate Division that broke through our line told me
that after breaking through it was impossible to force his men forward,
the fire on their flanks and front was so terrific that when driven out
of the works one-half of his command was killed, wounded or missing.
The Confederate records sustain this and it is a wonder that they could
force their line so often up to within Ioo to 300 feet of us where our fire
would drive them back, in spite of the efforts of their officers, a great
many of whom fell in these attacks.
I could see the terrific fighting at Leggetts Hill, but along the line
of the Fifteenth Corps, I can only speak of as shown by the records,
and as told me by General John C. Brown of the Confederate Army.
The stubborness and coolness with which they contested every inch of
the ground won his admiration, and the manner and method with
which the line was retaken, must have been seen to be appreciated.
When dark fell upon us the enemy had retired, except around the
angle in the Seventeenth Corps, known as Leggett's or Bald Hill.
Here there was a continuous fire, desultory and at close quarters, the
enemy in places occupying ground close up to our intrenchments and
to relieve these men of the Seventeenth Army Corps holding this angle
who were worn out, at the request of General Blair I sent two regiments of Mercer's Brigade. They crawled in on their hands and,
knees, and swept the enemy from that front.
The whole of Hood's Army except Stewart's Corps, was thrown
into our rear upon the flank and the front of the Army of the Tennessee, 
and after fighting from mid-day until dark were repulsed and driven
back, and that Army held or commanded the entire battle-field demonstrating the fact that the Army of the Tennessee alone was able and
competent to meet and defeat Hood's entire Army. The battle fell
almost entirely upon the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Corps and two
Divisions of the Fifteenth Corps, three Brigades of the Sixteenth
being absent. The attack of the enemy was made along this line some
seven times, and they were seven times repulsed.




BATTLE OF ATLANTA


13


We captured I8 stands of colors-5,ooo stands of arms-2,o017 prisoners. We lost in killed and wounded 3,521 men-xo pieces of
artillery, and over I,8oo men mostly from Blair's Corps, were taken
prisoners. The enemy's dead reported as buried in front of the
4        different Corps was over 2,000 and the enemy's total loss in killed,
wounded and prisoners was 8,00o.
The criticism has often been made of this battle that with two
armies idle that day, one the Army of the Ohio, (two thirds as large
as the Army of the Tennessee) the other the Army of the Cumberland,
(the largest of all Sherman's Armies), why we did not enter Atlanta.
General Sherman urged Thomas to make the attack, Thomas' answer
was, that the enemy were in full force behind his intrenchments, the
fact was Stewarts Corps was guarding that front but General Schofield
urged Sherman to allow him to throw his Army upon Cheatham's
flank, and endeavor to roll up the Confederate line and so interpose
between Atlanta and Cheatham's Corps which was so persistently
attacking the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps from the Atlanta front;
Sherman whose anxiety had been very great, seeing how successfully
we were meeting the attack, his face relaxing into a pleasant smile
said, to Schofield, "Let the Army of the Tennessee fight it out this
time." This flank attack of Schofield on Cheatham.would have no
doubt cleared our front facing Atlanta intrenchments but Stewart was
ready with his three Divisions and the Militia to hold the Atlanta
intrenchments.
General Sherman in speaking of this battle always regretted that he
did not allow Schofield to attack as he suggested and also force the
fighting on Thomas' front, but no doubt the loss of McPherson really
took his attention from everything except the Army of the Tennessee.
At about io o'clock on the night of the 22nd, the three corps commanders of the Army of the Tennessee (one of them in command of
the army) met in the rear of the Fifteenth Corps, on the line of the
a*     Decatur road under an oak tree, and there discussed the results of the day,
Blair's men were at the time in the trenches; in some places the enemy
held one side and they the other; the men of the Fifteenth Corps were
still in their own line, but tired and hungry, and those of the Sixteenth
were, after their hard day's fight, busy throwing up intrenchments on
the field they had held and won. It was thought that the Army of the
Cumberland and the Army of the Ohio, which had not been engaged
that day, should send a force to relieve Blair, and Dodge being the
junior corps commander, was dispatched by General Logan, at the
requests of Generals Logan and Blair, to see General Sherman. My
impression is that I met him in a tent; I have heard it said that he had




J4


BATTLE OF ATLANTA


his headquarters in a house. When I met him he seemed rather surprised to see me, but greeted me cordially, and spoke of the loss of
McPherson. I stated to him my errand. He turned upon me and
said: "Dodge you whipped them to-day, didn't you?" I said, "Yes,
sir." Then he said: "Can't you do it again to-morrow?" and I said,
"Yes, sir;" bade him good night and went back to my command,
-determined never to go upon another such errand. As he explained
it afterward, he wanted it said that the little army of Tennessee had
fought the great battle that day, needing no help, no aid, and that it
could be said that all alone it had whipped the whole of Hood's army.
Therefore he let us hold our position and our line, knowing that Hood
would not dare attack us after the "thrashing" he had already received.
When we consider that in this, the greatest battle of the campaign, the
little Army of the Tennessee met the entire rebel army, secretly thrust
to its rear, on its flank and upon its advance center, with its idolized
commander killed in the first shock of battle, and at nightfall found
the enemy's dead and wounded on its front, showing that no disaster,
no temporary rebuff could discourage this army; every man at his post,
every man doing a hero's duty, they proved they might be wiped out
but never made to run; they were invincible.
Companions, regarding so great a battle, against such odds, with
such loss, the question has often been asked me-and I know it has
come to the mind of all of us-why it was that this battle was never
put forth ahead of many others its inferior, but better known to the
world and made of much greater comment?
The answer comes to all of us. It is apparent to us to-day as it was
that night. We had lost our best friend, that superb soldier, our
commander, General McPherson; his death, counted so much more to
us than victory, that we spoke of our battle, our great success, with
our loss upper-most in our minds.
Letter written to Gen. Green B. Raun on his descrtition of Battle of
Atlanta, Published in the National Tribune, September 25th, 902 New York.
October 20th, 1902.         r
My dear General:
Referring to my conversation with you in Washington, I will
endeavor to aid you in getting at the actual facts connected with the
Battle of Atlanta, as it has never yet been properly written up.
I delivered an address on September 25th, I889, to the Army of the
Tennessee on that battle, copy of which I am sending to you, and
from which I think you can get a good deal of information.
I first want to call yonr attention to the fact that the battle corm



BATTLE OF ATLANTA


I5


menced about fifteen minutes after 12 o'clock, and that the Sixteenth
Army Corps fought a long time before the Seventeenth Corps was
attacked. You can verify this statement by reading General Strong's
account of the battle, which is given in our Army of the Tennessee
records, volume 1I to 13, page 242.
It was just 12 o'clock exactly when I reached Fuller's headquarters.
Having gone to the front to select my position, Fuller asked me to
stop and take luncheon, and I got down from my horse and went into
his tent. I had sat down at the table when I heard skirmish firing in
the rear. Fuller said it was a lot of the boys out there killing hogs.
The stillness was oppressive as we went clear to the left and front of
Blair's line to select my new position. We inquired from the pickets
and found that nobody had seen anything of the enemy. It made an
impression on us all, so the moment I heard this firing I jumped up,
as if by instinct, and told Fuller to get into line, and sent a staff
officer towards Sweeney, but before he hardly got out of the tent
Sweeney was in line and fighting, so you can see how sudden the
attack was.
In volume II to 13, of the Army of the Tennessee records, page 243,
Strong, in his address on the Battle of Atlanta, has this to say fixing
the time of the commencement of the Dattle, speaking of the time
when an officer was sent with an order to me from McPherson.
'The officer had hardly disappeared from sight, when a shot was
"heard to the left and rear of us, and another followed quickly by a
"rattling volley of small arms, and at almost the same instant a shell
"came crashing through the tree tops near us, followed by a rapid and
"incessant firing from Dodge's corps. At the first shots every officer
"sprang to his feet and called for his horse. The time, I should think,
was ten or fifteen minutes past 12 o'clock" Then after speaking of
the fighting of this division, comes to this on page 243. "After the
"two attempts to break the Sixteenth Corps had failed, General
KA      "McPherson sent me to General Blair to ascertain the condition of
"affairs along his line, and instructed me to say to General Giles A.
~'Smith to hold his position, that he would order up troops to occupy
VP      "the gap between the Seventeenth and Sixteenth Corps, and also
"saying as I left him that he would remain with his orderly where he
"then was (a commanding position on Dodge's right) until I returned.
"I rode rapidly through the woods towards the Seventeenth Corps and
"found General Blair with General Giles A. Smith near the extreme
"left of the Fourth Division (Hall's Brigade)."
This conclusively shows that Blair was not attacked until after two
attacks had been made upon me, although Hall's report gives the.
attack upon Blair as at 12 o'clock, that time being before the Sixteenth




16.


BATTLE OF AT'LANTA


Corps was attacked. Fuller gives the time of attack upon him as 12.30.
By reading all of page 243 you will get a full and clear idea of time ~
and everything. The time was also taken by my staff and record
made of it, and that agrees with Strong. This only shows how far
apart officers can get in a great battle on time, and on many things,
unless correct data is made of record on the spot.
On page 484 of vol. 14 to i6 of Society of Army of Tennessee records
General Leggett says: "Both divisions of the Sixteenth Army Corps
immediately became hotly engaged, etc., etc. Just at this time I
espied General McPherson upon the high ground in the immediate
rear of General Fuller's command, and sent Captain John B. Raymond
of my staff to inquire of General McPherson the expediency of having
General Giles A. Smith and myself change our line so as to face south,
and at the same time I sent Captain George W. Porter to ascertain
whether or not the left of General Smith and the right of General
Fuller were sufficiently near together to antagonize any force seeking
entrance there." He further says: "The enemy in front of the Sixteenth Corps rallied in the woods (this is after the first attack) and
renewed their attack with increased vigor and bitterness, etc., etc.
The conflict continued for some time with no appearance on either
side of any disposition to yield the ground, when the enemy gave way,
and fell back in confusion, followed by the Sixteenth Corps." He
also says: "The second assault (upon the Sixteenth Corps) was
simultaneous with the attack upon General Giles A. Smith's division,
which was the left of the Seventeenth Corps."
You will note from my address, that the moment I was attacked I
sent an aide, and afterwards a signal officer, named Sheffly, I think,
who was detailed with me that day, or happened to be with me.
These officers had gone to General Giles A. Smith, who commanded
Blair's left, Fourth Division, Seventeenth Corps, to get him to refuse
his lelt and join my right. I think the first officer I sent was Captain
Jonas of my staff, who returned immediately to me, and General Giles A.
Smith sent me word that he would refuse. That was a long time before
Cleburn's division got between us, but as my paper and your article
show, McPherson had sent word without knowing the condition in
front of Giles A. Smith to hold his position, and he would send rein~forcements to fill the gap between Fuller and himself. Of course had
McPherson been there earlier and seen what I saw, he would have had
Smith's left join my right immediately, which would have put
Cleburn in front of us, instead of between us. That is one of the
things that occur in battle that the person on the ground knows
better than the one distant. It was on the third attack on my line
hat the enemy struck Blair, as Strong did not go to Blair until after




BATTLE OF ATLANTA


I7


the repulse of the second attack. Cleburn's force got right in behind
Blair's left, and picked up that portion of his line that was refused,
and swept back his force so that Blair's left, even before Waglin of the
Fifteenth Corps got there was pretty nearly an extension of but a
quarter of a mile away from Fuller's right, and after I got through
fighting I had to withdraw my entire right quite a distance to connect
with Waglin and Blair, such line as Cleburn's force had pressed clear
beyond me and before he was halted was way in the rear of my right,
After the second attack Cleburn, as he pressed through the gap
between Fuller and Smith, forced Fuller to change front and use part
of his force to protect his flank, and the Sixty-fourth Illinois in this
movement captured the skirmish line that killed McPherson, taking
from them his field-glass, orders and other papers that they had taken
from McPherson's body, and later in the day I sent these to General
Sherman. See report Sixty-fourth Illinois volume 38, part 3, War
Records, page 494. Fuller's maps, page 480, volume 38, part 3, War
Records, show were Fuller fought, and where we had to intrench.
Where I stood in my line I could see the entire Confederate force,
and all of my own, something that very seldom occurs, and of course,
the scene as Blair states was a magnificent one. I saw Fuller do a
most gallant act. I sent an aide to him with instructions to charge,
but before he got there Walker's division broke the center of Fuller's
Brigade, his own regiment, the Twenty-seventh Ohio, falling back. I
saw Fuller get down off his horse, grab the colors of the Twentyseventh, rush to the front with them in his hands and called upon his
regiment to come to the colors, and they rallied and saved his front.
It was but a moment later that I saw Walker, who commanded the
division that was attacking Fuller, fall from his horse, and the division
broke and went into the woods. The action of Fuller was very gallant, and has been painted, and I have a copy of the painting in my
room.
Blair in his report has this to say of the fighting, which shows that
he watched us a long time before he was attacked, and if you will
read his report carefully, you will see that it bears out my statements
in full. Blair says: "I started to go back to my command and witnessed the fearful assault made on the Sixteenth Army Corps, and its
prompt and gallant repulse by that command. It was a most fortunate circumstance for the whole army that the Sixteenth Army Corps
occupied the position I have attempted to describe at the moment of
attack, and although it does not belong to me to report upon the
bearing and conduct of the officers and men of that corps, still I cannot withhold my expression of admiration for the manner in which
this command met and repulsed the repeated and persistent attacks




18


BATTLE OF ATLANTA


of the enemy. The attack upon our flank was made by the whole of
Hardee's corps."
I speak in my address of Mercer's brigade fighting on three parts of
the field. Mercer after helping to retake the Decatur road line,
camped right in the rear of the Fifteenth Corps, and did not come
back to me. When Logan, Blair and myself met that evening, Blair
asked Logan for some help to go up to relieve troops at Bald Hill.
Logan, seeing Mercer's brigade there, ordered me to send it up.
They went up there and crawled in and relieved the men on Bald Hill.
This was very late in the night, and even then fresh men coming in
drove out or captured what men there were still lying on the enemy's
side of the intrenchments. Mercer never made a report of this battle.
You will see by my paper that he was virtually out of the service,
awaiting transportation home, but he went in with his regiment the
same as though they were still in the service. He was a German, and
I do not suppose he knew the importance of reporting, and it was
only a short time after that I had to leave that army, therefore did not
follow it up, and I find no report of Mercer or of the Ninth Illinois,
but I think the regimental reports of the Eighty-first Ohio give all these
facts. See War Records volume 38, part 3, page 463, and report
Second Brigade, Second Division Sixteenth Army Corps, volume 38,
part 3, page 450.
In my address I did not go much into detail, but I have all the data
of this battle compiled, and intend some day to put it in shape, but I
give you enough so you can, after examining the reports of Blair and
the others, make your article historically correct. Most of it is
correct and well-stated, but I know you want to get the dates and
movements at the left on such an occasion so full that they will stand
criticism, as the Battle of Atlanta was the great battle of that
cam paign.
Your article and many others that I have seen assumes that it was
a part of Hardee's Corps that struck Blair's front-that is his front
that was towards Atlanta, but that is not so. Cleburn's Division was
the left division of Hardee's Corps  There were three other divisions,
Maney's, (Cheatham's old division) Bate's and Walker's. Walker was
the next to Cleburn and attacked Fuller, Bate and Maney struck 
Sweeney. Cleburn's Division was in front of Blair after Cleburn had
driven back his left and he had refused it from Leggett's Hill towards
my right. What saved Blair was that Cheatham, who commanded
Hood's old Corps, whose orders were to attack Blair's front at the same
time Hardee struck his rear, in accordance with the plans of both
Hood and Hardee, did not attack because Hardee struck me, which
was a surprise to them as well as to me, and when Cheatham got ready




BATTLE OF ATLANTA


19


to attack Blair's front, hitting Leggett's Division and on down the
Fifteenth Corps, two divisions, Bate's and Walker's, had been whipped,
and were virtually out of the fight, because after the third attack upon
me, and my breaking up- of one of their columns so badly, they did
not come again in any force. They went back to the road on the ridge,
just south of and parallel to my line. I forget the name of the road,
but it was the one that led off to Decatur, and there they intrenched,
and when I pushed forward my skirmishers I found them in force.
Between 3 and 4 o'clock Maney's Division left my front and went
around to help Cleburn.
There have also been many statements that in the first attack two
Divisions of Hardee's Corps struck the Sixteenth Corps and two the
Seventeenth Blair's. This is not correct. Three Divisions struck my
Corps, and one Division, Cleburn's, struck Blair's Corps, and caught
his left and rear, but after the third attack on my front Maney's Division was sent around to join Cleburn, and joined in the fiercest attack
of the day about 4 P. M. upon Leggett's and Smith's Divisions after
their line had been refused and formed almost at right angles at
Leggett's Hill, and reaching out towards me, with Waglin's Brigade
on their left. From all accounts this attack was a fearful one, Maney's
men reaching and holding the outside of the intrenchments that were
occupied by Blair's men. This line faced almost due south and both
forces fought there off and on until about 7 P. M., some of the enemy
remaining in the outside intrenchments until Mercer's Brigade of the
Sixteenth Corps went in at near midnight to support that line.
Again many records have it that Blair was forced back early in the
battle. This is a mistake, as his 4th Division, commanded by General
Giles A. Smith, which was on the extreme left held most of his
original intrenched line until between 3 and 4 o'clock, when the attack
of Cheatham from the Atlanta side forced them to take a new position
to keep them from being crushed by Cleburn in the rear and Cheatham's attack from the Atlanta front.
There is another thing that does not seem to be fully understood,
and that is that when Blair got his left refused so as to face Maney
and Cleburn in his front they were unable to gain any headway on him
in their attacks. In fact, they suffered great loss, and they only
damaged Blair when they got in behind his left. Blair had three
regiments there refused at right angles to his front, and it was a
portion of two of these regiments that Cleburn picked up. Blair lost
nearly all his prisoners from Giles A. Smith's Division, when Cleburn
swept down through the gap and got right in behind them before they
knew any body was on them. In fact, Blair's men had to turn around
and fight towards their rear, and as I have stated, Cleburn got past




20


BATTLE OF ATLANTA


Fuller's right and commenced shooting into his flank. Just after
Walker was killed there was a lull, and Fuller turned two regiments
right into Cleburn's main line, and, as Captain Alien of the Signal 
Corps, says, and my records show, captured that skirmish line that
killed McPherson and brought it in.
To show McPherson's feeling about Blair's left flank, I sent Fuller's
command to that flank the night before on a request from McPherson,
who felt anxious about Blair's position, that flank being in the air, but
Blair camped Fuller near where he opened the battle in the rear of
the Seventeenth Corps instead of connecting his left with it. They
camped about a quarter of a mile to his rear and a little back from his
extreme left. Blair, no doubt, thought that would protect him,as well as
put them in line, but he took one of my batteries (Murray's) and put it in
his front line. Now this battery was on the way from Blair to report
to me, coming down just as McPherson was going up the road, and
the same skirmish line that killed McPherson killed the horses of that
battery and captured a portion of the men, and McPherson really
almost fell upon the limber of one of the guns. This was Murray's
United States Battery of four pieces. I do not know as I have seen
this mentioned in any of the reports, unless it is in mine, but these are
the facts of the matter. That is the way a battery of my corps was
reported lost or captured by the enemy, It was passing from Blair
to myself, and not captured in line of battle or fighting, as a great
many have stated and supposed to be the case.
In your article you speak of Logan taking a part of the Sixteenth
Corps and leading it, as though it was right on my front, and then
speak of him as leading a portion of the Fifteenth Corcps that had
been broken through on the Decatur road back into position. The
facts are that it was about 4 o'clock in the afternoon when Logan
came to me and asked me to send any force I had free to help retake
the line that General John C. Brown's Division had broken through
the Fifteenth Corps. I sent Mercer's brigade of the second division,
and with it sent Captain Jonas of my staff. (See his statement copied
in my address). Logan followed with the command, and it doublequicked the whole distance without stopping. As soon as it got there
it found Lightburn's Division drifted back but holding behind the 
trees their line, the enemy in possession of DeGresse's Battery, and as
Mercer's Brigade went in on the front Williamson's Brigade of Wood's
Division, which Sherman had directed to make a flank charge, was
moving, and they both reached the works together. The men of
Mercer's Brigade got hold of DeGresse's guns (see report of 8ist Ill.)
and turned them on the enemy. There has always been a contest
between these two brigades as to which got there first, but that does




BATTLE OF ATLANTA


21


not matter, for they got in together and retook the line. General J.
C. Brown, who commanded the Confederate Division, was with me
afterwards for many years on the Texas and Pacific Railway, and has
given me a full account of his attack, and the fury with which he was
forced out by this movement from the flank by Wood and the direct
assault by Mercer. Mercer in going in had his horse killed under him.
Fighting along the Fifteenth Corps came late, and was all pretty
much after the fighting on my front was over, because when General
Logan came to me for aid I was intrenching the new line made by the
refusal of Blair's left, and took Mercer's Brigade right out of my front
to go with him. The fact is I did not happen to have a single man in
reserve. Every man I had on the field was in line from the commencement of the fighting. Sweeney's Division stood right up in the road
it was marching on, and the two batteries were in the center of his
division; the position was a very strong one. If I had had plenty of time
to select a position I could not have found a stronger one. It was the
first time I ever saw such execution done by artillery. They used
canister against those columns with terrible effect.
To show you how small a thing will sometimes change the prospects
in a battle, one of Hardee's Divisions coming towards me got entangled
in something-at that time I could not tell what-but on going to the
ground afterwards I found that it was a mill pond, that exposed the
flank of Maney's Division that was next to Walker's. Seeing this I
rode down to Mercer and told him to take his brigade and charge
right into it, which he did. It was quite a time before I could tellwhat the result was, but I soon saw prisoners coming back and knew
then that Mercer had them. He had that division at a great disadvantage, and captured a great many prisoners out of it and several
battle flags. See report 2nd Brigade, 2nd Division Sixteenth Army
Corps, vol. 38, part 3, page 45o Army Records. That charge, no doubt,
saved my line, because I had a very thin line, and with the most of
Hardee's Corps coming at me in double column, as it was, I have no
doubt that if it had reached me it would have given me trouble, but
they never got to me on any of their attacks. We were fortunate
enough to break them before they could reach the line, though on
Fuller's front they were right up to it when Walker fell.
There was a great dispute between Hood and Hardee about this
movement to the rear, Hood claiming that Hardee should have reached
there early in the morning, while Hardee claimed he did not receive
the order in time to get there before he did-a very fortunate fact for
us, for if he had reached the rear of the Seventeenth and Fifteenth
Corps, and Cheatham and Stewart had attacked in the front, it would
have been rough times for the old Army of the Tennessee, but no




22


13ATTLE OF ATLANTA


doubt they would have come out of it with honor in some way.
I think there is no doubt about the time McPherson was killed-it
was just about two hours after the battle had opened. Of course there
are all kinds of time given, but the fact of the stopping of the watch
of the signal officer, Sheffly, when he fell against the tree at two minutes past two, is almost conclusive evidence. See his statement vol.
II-13, page 242, records Society Army of the Tennessee. You can
judge of that yourself, because even before McPherson got up to my
right, where he stood, as Strong says, watching me, I had been fighting some time, for he had to ride from near Sherman's headquarters up
there, a distance of two to three miles. If you will read carefully the
address I am sending you, and the report Blair made, also the
address of Strong, I think you will come to the same conclusions I
give you. An article on the death of General McPherson by W. W.
Allen, of San Diego, California, Signal Officer of the Army of the
Tennessee, appeared in an issue of the National Tribune some time
this year, but of what date I do not know. It goes to prove the time
and the hour McPherson was killed,.and the capture of the skirmish
line that killed him. Of course a great many of the official reports
are misleading as to time, and it is only by these circumstances that
we can judge definitely. I notice it was 12:20 o'clock, according to
Allen, when they first heard the rattle of musketry and artillery.
When you have read Allen's article please return it to me. I will be
very glad to give you any further information you may need if it is
possible for me to do so.
Truly and cordially yours,
GENERAL GREEN B. RAUM,                   GRENVILLE M. DODOE,
Chicago, Ill.
c+F,                                         ~




EXECUTION
OF THE
CONFEDERATE SPY SAMUEL DAVIS,
At PULASKI TENN, NOVENBER, 1863.
NEW YORK, June I5th, I897.
To the Editor of "The Confederate Veteran."
In fulfillment of my promise to give you my recollections of Sam
Davis (who was hung as a spy in November, 1863, at Pulaski, Tenn.)
I desire to say that writing of matters which occured 34 years ago,
one is apt to make mistakes as to minor details, but the principal
facts were such that they impressed themselves upon my mind so that
I can speak of them with some certainty.
When General Grant ordered General Sherman (whose head of
column was near Eastport, on Tennessee River) to drop everything
and bring his army to Chattanooga, my corps (the Sixteenth) was then
located at Corinth, Miss., and I brought up the rear.
General Grant's anxiety to attack Bragg's command before Longstreet could return from East Tennessee brought on the battle before
I could reach Chattanooga. General Grant, therefore, instructed
General Sherman to halt my command in Middle Tennessee and to
instruct me to rebuild the railway from Nashville to Decatur. The
fulfilling of above order is fully set forth by General Grant in his
Memoirs.
When I reached the line of the Nashville and Decatur railroad, I
distributed my troops from Columbia south towards Athens, Alabama.
I had about Io,ooo men and 8,ooo animals and was without provisions,
with no railroad or water communication to any basis of supply, and




24


EXECUTION OF SAMUEL DAVIS


was obliged to draw subsistence for my command from the adjacent
country until I could rebuild the railroad and receive my supplies
from Nashville.
My command was a part of the "Army of the Tennessee," occupying
temporarily a portion of the territory of the "Department of the
Cumberland," but not reporting or subject to the commander of that
department.
Upon an examination of the country, I found that there was an
abundance of everything needed to supply my command, except
where Sherman's forces had swept across it along Elk River. He
wrote me "I do not think that my forces have left a chicken for you."
I also found that I was in a country where the sentiment of the people
was almost unanimously against us. I had very little faith in converting them by the taking of the oath of allegiance; I therefore issued an
order, stating that the products of the country I required to supply
my command, and to all who had these products, regardless of their
sentiments, who would bring them to the stations where my troops
were located, 1 would pay a fair price for them, but if I had to send
and bring the supplies myself, that I should take them without making
payment, giving them only receipts; and also issued instructions that
every train going for supplies should be accompanied by an officer and
receipt given for what he took. This had a good effect, the citizens
generally bringing in their supplies to my command and receiving the
proper voucher, but it also gave an opportunity for straggling bands
to rob and charge up their depredations to my command. This caused
many complaints to be filed with the military governor of Tennessee
and the department commander of the Cumberland.
Upon investigation, I found most of those depredations were committed by irresponsible parties of both sides, and I also discovered
that there was a well organized ard disciplined corps of scouts and
spies within my lines, one force operating to the east of the line,
under Captain Coleman, and another force operating to the west,
having its headquarters in the vicinity of Florence,'Alabama. I issued
orders to my own spies to locate these parties, sending out scouting
parties to wipe them out or drive them across the Tennessee River.
My cavalry had considerable experience in this work in and around
Corinth, and they were very successful and brought in many prisoners,
most of whom could only be treated as prisoners of war.
The Seventh Kansas Cavalry was very efficient in this service, and
they captured Samuel Davis, Joshua Brown, Smith and General
Bragg's Chief of Scouts and Secret Service Colonel S. Shaw, all about
the same time. We did not know of the importance of the capture of
Shaw, or that he was the Captain Coleman commanding Bragg's secret




EXECUTION OF SAMUEL DAVIS


25


service force. Nothing was found on any of the prisoners of importance,
except upon Davis, who evidently had been selected to carry the information they had all obtained through to General Bragg. Upon
Davis were found letters from Captain Coleman, the commander of the
scouts to the east of us, and many others. I was very anxious to capture Coleman and break up his command, as my own scouts and spies
within the Confederate line were continually reporting to us the news
sent south from and the movements of Coleman within my lines.
Davis was brought immediately to me,. as his captors knew his
importance. They believed he was an officer and also knew he was a
member of Coleman's command.
When brought to my office I met him pleasantly. I knew what had
been found upon him and I desired to locate Coleman and his command and ascertain, if possible, who was furnishing the information,
which I saw was accurate and valuable to General Bragg.
Davis met me modestly. He was a fine, soldierly-looking young
man, dressed in a faded Federal soldier's coat, one of our army soft
hats and top boots. He had a frank, open face, which was inclined to
brightness. I 'tried to impress upon him the danger he was in, and
that I knew he was only a messenger, and held out to him the hope
of lenient treatment if he would answer truthfully, as far as he could,
my questions.
He listened attentively and respectfully to me, but, as I recollect,
made no definite answer, and I had him returned to the prison. My
recollection is that Captain Armstrong, my Provost Marshal, placed
in the prison with him and the other prisoners one of our own spies, who
claimed to them to be one of the Confederate scouting parties operating within my lines, and I think the man More-whom  the other
prisoners speak of as having been captured with them and escaping,
was this man. However, they all kept their own counsel and we
obtained no information of value from them.
The reason of this reticence, was the fact that they all knew Colonel
Shaw was one of our captives, and that if his importance was made
known to us he would certainly be hung, and they did not think that
Davis would be executed.
Upon Davis was found a large mail of value. Much of it was letters
from the friends and relatives of soldiers in the Confederate Army.
There were many small presents, one or two, I remember, to General
Bragg, and much accurate information of my forces, of our defences,
our intentions, substance of my orders, criticisms as to my treatment
of the citizens and a general approval of my payment for supplies,
while a few denounced severely some of the parties who had hauled
in supplies under the orders.




26


EXECUTION OF SAMUEL DAVIS


Captain Coleman mentioned this in one of his letters.
There were also intimations of the endeavor that would be made to
interrupt my work, and plans for the capture of single soldiers and
small parties of the command out after forage.
I had Davis brought before me again, after my Provost Marshal
had reported his inability to obtain anything of value from him. I
then informed him that he would be tried as a spy; that the evidence
against him would surely convict him, and made a direct appeal to
him to give me the information I knew he had. He very quietly, but
firmly, refused to do it. I therefore let him be tried and suffer the
consequences. Considerable interest was taken in young Davis by
the Provost Marshal and Chaplain Young, and considerable pressure
was brought to bear upon them by some of the citizens of Pulaski;
and I am under the impression that some of them saw Davis and
endeavored to induce him to save himself, but they failed. Mrs. John
A. Jackson, I remember, made a personal appeal in his behalf directly
to me. Davis was convicted upon trial and sentenced. Then one of
my noted scouts, known as "Chickasaw," believed that he could
prevail upon Davis to give the information we asked.
He took him in hand and never gave it up until the last moment,
going to the scaffold with a promise of pardon a few moments before
his execution.
Davis died to save his own chief, Colonel Shaw, who was in prison
with him and was captured the same day.
The parties who were prisoners with Davis have informed me that
it was Shaw who had selected Davis as the messenger to General
Bragg, and had given to him part of his mail and papers.
I did not know this certainly until a long time after the war. I first
learned of it by rumor and what some of my own scouts have told me
since the war, and it has since been confirmed confidentially to me
by one of the prisoners who was captured about the same time that
Davis was and who was imprisoned with him up to the time he was
convicted and sentenced, and knew Colonel Shaw, as well as all the
facts in the case.
The statement made to me is, that Colonel S. Shaw was the chief or
an important officer in General Bragg's Secret Service Corps; that
Shaw had furnished the important documents to Davis, and that their
captors did not know Shaw and his importance.
Colonel Shaw I sent with the other prisoners North, as prisoners of
war. I also learned that Shaw was greatly alarmed when he was
informed I was trying to induce Davis to give me the information he
had.
This is where Davis showed himself a true soldier. He had been




EXECUTION OF SAMUEL.DAVIS


27


entrusted with an important commission by an important officer, who
was imprisoned with him, and died rather than betray him. He knew
to a certainty, if he informed me of the facts, that Shaw would be
executed, for he was a far more important person to us than was
Davis.
During the war I had many spies captured; some executed, who
were captured within the Confederate lines and who were equally
brave in meeting their fate.
By an extraordinary effort I saved the life of one who was captured
by Forrest. Through my efforts this man escaped, though General
Forrest sized him up correctly. He was one of the most important
men we ever had within the Confederate lines.
Forrest was determined to hang him, but Major-General Polk
believed him innocent and desired to save him.
Great interest was taken in Davis at the time, because it was
known by all of the command that I desired to save him.
Your publication bears many evidences of this fact. It is not, therefore, necessary for me to state that I regretted to see sentence executed;
but it was one of the fates of war, which is cruelty itself, and there is
no refining it.
I find this letter bearing upon the case; it may be of interest. It is
my first report to Major B. M. Sawyer, Assistant Adjutant-General,
Army of the Tennessee, notifying him of the capture of Davis. It is
dated, Pulaski, Tenn., November 2oth, I863, and is as follows:
"I herewith inclose a copy of dispatches taken from one of
Bragg's spies. He had a heavy mail, papers,'etc., and shows
Captain Coleman is pretty well posted.
We have broken up several bands of mounted robbers and
Confederate cavalry in the last week, capturing some five
commissioned officers and one hundred enlisted men, who
have been forwarded.
I also forward a few of the most important letters found in
the mail. The tooth brushes and blank-books I was greatly
in need of and therefore appropriated them. I am,
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
G. M. DODGE,
' Brigadier-General."
The severe penalty of death, where a spy is captured, is not because
there is anything dishonorable in the fact of the person being a spy,
as only men of peculiar gifts for such service, men of courage and
cool judgment and undoubted patriotism are selected. The fact
that the information they obtain is found within their enemy's lines




28


EXECUTION OF SAMUEL DAVIS


and probably of great danger to an army is what causes the penalty
to be so very severe. A soldier caught in the uniform, or a part of
the uniform of his enemy, within his enemy's lines, establishes the
fact that he is a spy and is there in violation of the Articles of War
and for no good purpose. This alone will prohibit his being treated
as a prisoner of war, when caught as Davis was in our uniform, with
valuable documents upon him, and seals his fate.
I appreciate fully that the people of Tennessee and Davis' comrades
understand his soldierly qualities and propose to honor his memory.
I take pleasure in aiding in raising the monument to his memory,
although the services he performed were for the purpose of injuring
my command, but given in faithfully performing the duties he was
assigned to. I am
Truly and respectfully,
GRENVILLE M. DODGE,
Major- General,>
Ct


0




BANQUET IN HONOR OF


GENERAL 0. O, HOWARD,
ON REACHING HIS 70th BIRTHDAY,
Toast:
General 0. O. Howard, as Commander of the Army of the Tennessee.
Response by Major General Grenville M. Dodge.
M r. Chairman:
After the great battle of Atlanta, July 22nd, I864. in which the Army
of the Tennessee lost its distinguished and greatly beloved commander,
General McPherson, General Sherman had the delicate and difficult
task to perform of selecting a new commander for that army, which
had furnished to the war Generals Grant, Sherman and McPherson.
General Logan, the commander of the Fifteenth Army Corps, fell to
the command of the army by reason of seniority of rank, and he
finished successfully the greatest battle of that campaign, and naturally
expected to receive the permanent command of that army. In an
address to the Society of the Army of the Tennessee, General Sherman
gives his reasons for the selection he made in the following language.
" In the midst of that battle General McPherson was killed; and I,
"the common commander of the whole, ordered instantly General
i      " Logan, the sen.ior, to assume command of the Army of the Tennessee,
"and to go on to complete the orders given to General McPherson.
"I complimented him personally on the field; no man ever questioned
"his patriotism, valor or ability in action, and he had good reason to
" expect the succession. The lawful right to appoint a successor to
"McPherson vested in President Lincoln, but he may have acted
"solely on my advice; I am willing to assume the whole responsibility.
"The science of war is not modern; it is as old as time and like most




30


BANQUET TO GEN. O. O. HOWARD


" sciences has resolved itself into three parts: Logistics, grand strategy
"and combat, each essential to success. General Logan was perfect
"in combat, but entertained and expressed a species of contempt for
"the other branches; whereas a general, who undertakes a campaign
"without the forethought and preparation involved in logistics will
"fail as surely as the mechanic who ignores the law of gravitation.
"After consulting with my trusted commanders, I recommended
"General Howard to succeed McPherson. General Howard had been
"a corps commander reduced to a division commander by the con"solidation of the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps into the Twentieth.
"He fought with the Army of the Tennessee at Missionary Ridge,
"went with us up to Knoxville, every day was with us to July 22nd,
"when McPherson was killed, and was, by the only legal authority of
"our Government, appointed to command the Army of the Tennessee,
"and I bear Logan's memory in the greater honor because he sub" mitted with soldierly grace and demeanor."
General Sherman had many distinguished soldiers to select from
that were officers of his great army of over one hundred thousand men,
and it seems to me that a greater compliment could not have been
paid to a soldier than Sherman gave General Howard when he assigned
him to the command of the most successful army of the war.
After the battle of Atlanta, General Sherman determined to swing
the Army of the Tennessee from the extreme left to the extreme right,
with a view of finally moving to the south of Atlanta and planting his
army upon General Hood's communications. In this movement my
corps, the Sixteenth, being the extreme left of the Army of the Tennessee, was the first to pull out, and naturally would be the first to go
into line. It was about noon on July 27th, 1864, when the head of my
column reached the right flank of General Thomas' Army of the
Cumberland, on which I was to join, and where I for the first time
met General Howard. One of my divisions was delayed and was not
up, and General Howard appeared to me to be notably annoyed, and
expressed himself to me in a way that made it evident that he was
fearful I would not get into line on time. I explained to him the
reason of the delay to my second division, which was unavoidable.
He made no comment, but seeing his great anxiety I made a special
effort and soon got into line, before Blair's and Logan's Corps got up,
and he showed plainly his astonishment and satisfaction when I reported to him that I was in line and partially intrenched. Blair went
partially into line that night, but Logan did not get in until the next
morning, when the enemy attacked him with great force, and the battle
of Ezra Church was fought. The enemy always called it the "killing"
of Ezra Church. They charged Logan's lines seven or eight times,




BANQUET TO GEN. O. O. HOWARD            31
and were driven back with great slaughter. General Howard allowed
General Logan to fight this battle without interference, although he
was on the field under fire, alert, and watching every movement, and
where our men could see him. In his report he gave all the credit for
the victory to General Logan. After the battle General Howard
passed along our lines on foot so that the men could see him. He
had a kindly word for them, and his calmness, self-possession and
action that day placed him in accord with our army, and he gained its
respects and confidence, and from that day to the end of the war he
was a part of us.
General Sherman tried all expedients, by calvalry raids, by temporarialy breaking Hood's line of supply, to force him to evacuate Atlanta,
but saw that he must plant his army permanently upon Hood's commnnications, therefore, General Howard, with the Army of the Tennessee, swung clear of Atlanta, pushed south, striking the enemy at
Jonesboro, the rest of the army following, and in a day or two Sherman
was enabled to send his dispatch, "Atlanta is ours and fairly won."
My service with General Howard was short, for on August i9th, I
was given a Confederate leave, and did not return to duty until
November. I was greatly disappointed when I learned I was not, to
serve again under General Howard, although I was assigned to a larger
and more important command. Still I preferred to remain and take
my old command in the army that I had served with, and shared its
trials and fortunes for three years. I had reported for duty before I
had fully recovered in order to be with it in the campaigns which I
knew were about to take place in the march to the sea, but Sherman
did not consider me equal to the hard work before him.
The operations of Sherman's Army, sixty-five thousand strong, with
General Howard commanding the right wing and General Slocum
its left wing, in its march to Savannah, thence through the Carolinas
to Raleigh, and the surrender of Johnston, gave General Howard an
opportunity to exhibit those qualites that General Sherman declared
were necessary in an army commander. General Howard's command
took part in the battles and engagements of McAlister, Griswoldsville,
Riser's, Brinaker's Bridges, Orangeburg, Congaree Creek, Columbia,
Cheraw, Fayetteville, Averysboro and Bentonville. His army had a
confidence in itself that made it almost invincible, and Sherman, who
considered that this campaign, so bold, so aggressive and so successful,
would be considered in future years as the one achievement of his life
that would determine his standing as a great commander, said to me
that General Howard's ability, subordination, comprehension and
carrying out of his plans had fully justified'his selection of him as the
commander of the Army of the Tennessee.




32


BANQUET TO GEN. O. O. HOWARD


It is well known that General Sherman was desirous of recognizing
General Logan's loyalty and action, and the manner in which he
accepted the orders relieving him of the command of the Army of the
Tennessee, in some noted manner, and the opportunity offered after
the surrender of General Johnston, when the army in its march was
nearing Washington, and he asked General Howard to accept another
command, in order that General Logan might have the satisfaction
and honor of commanding the Army of the Tennessee during its march
and review in Washington. General Howard, in his good heart,
readily acquiesced, although it must have been a great disappointment
to him, for he had successfully commanded the army in several battles
and been with it day and night from the time he took command until
the end of the war. In describing this review General Sherman said:
" When I reached the Treasury Department building and looked back
the sight was simply magnificent. The column was compact, and the
glittering muskets looked like a solid mass of steel moving with the
regularity of a pendulum;" and he said it was the happiest and proudest moment of his life. For this reason the Army of the Tennessee,
with the aid of the Government, is errecting a monument to General
Sherman's honor and memory right at this spot.
It is a suggestive fact that when war with Spain was declared the
four sons of the commanders of the Army of the Tennessee took part
in it. They were General Frederick D. Grant, Father Thomas E.
Sherman, Colonel Guy Howard, (who was in the regular service), and
Major John A. Logan, Jr. They have all been an honor to their fathers
and credit to their country. Three of them were members of the
Society of the Army of the Tennessee, and I was personally acquainted
with all of them. Two of them, Colonel Guy Howard and Major
John A. Logan, fell in battle in the Philippines, in the line of their duty,
and they were most honored, loved and praised by those who knew
them best,-their comrades in the service. When Colonel Howard
was killed I wrote General Howard, my old commander, a kindly
letter, to try, if I could, to lift a part of the burden from his mind.
When he came to New York he called to see me, and what he said
greatly impressed me. When he came into my office with tears in his
eyes, but brave in his great sorrow, he said: "Dodge, although it is
hard to bear, you and I have no right to complain. It is what we
have been educated to, and what we might expect and must always be
prepared to meet." Everyone must appreciate this faith, christian
fortitude and soldierly example, which was equal to the great qualities
he always exhibited on the battle field.
In 1867, speaking of what the private soldier had accomplished in
the war, General Howard uttered this sentiment. "God grant that




BANQUET TO GEN. O. 0. HOWARD


33


what.he planted, nourished, and has now preserved by his blood-I
mean American liberty-may be a plant to us as the apple of the eye,
and that its growth may not be hindered till its roots are firmly set in
every State of the Union, and till the full fruition of its blessed fruit
is realized by men of every name, color and description, in this broad
land."  This sentiment seems to have been his guiding star in all his
walks since the war, and it must be a great satisfaction to him on this,
his seventieth birthday, to see how completely his sentiment has been.
fulfilled.
My relations with General Howard were renewed soon after the war.
Circumstances brought us often together, and the liking I formed for
him before Atlanta grew into a close friendship that has been of great:
benefit to me. There is no one who takes so great a pleasure in
honoring General Howard as myself, and it is very gratifying to me
to see this distinguished company, and note its respect and love for my
old commander, comrade and friend, and while I congratulate you and
him for the great work he has performed, my greatest pleasure is in
bringing to him, as I do, as the President of the Society of the Army of
the Tennessee, the congratulations of that army, its God speed and its
heart-felt prayers and wishes for his good health, long life and continued presence with us. Many of you may not appreciate what that
means, but an old soldier like General Howard, who commanded that
army so long, and who has looked every one of them in the eyes so
many times, will properly prize and never forget it.
Perhaps it is expected that I should say something of the Army of
the Tennessee, which General Howard so ably commanded, adding
so much to its reputation and victories, but that is a subject so great
that I will not even attempt to discuss it. In speaking of the services
of that army, upon a similar occasion, General Grant paid this tribute
to the Army of the Tennessee, and I will take it as mine.
"As an army, the Army of the Tennessee never sustained a single
defeat during four years of war. Every fortification which it assailed
surrendered; every force arrayed against'it was either defeated, captured
or destroyed; no officer was ever assigned to the command of that
army who had afterwards to be relieved from it or reduced to another
command. Such a history is not accident."




ADDRESS TO
SIXTEENTH ARMY CORPS,
DELIVERED AT THE
NATIONAL ENCAMPMENT G. A. R., Washington, D. C.,
October, I902.
Comrades of the Sixteenth Army Corps:
The Sixteenth Army Corps was organized December I8th, i862, and
formed into two wings. General A. J. Smith commanded the right
wing, and General G. M. Dodge the left wing of the corps. The
left wing was organized with the corps, the right wing a year or more
afterwards. The corps, as a body, was never together, though it probably took part in more widely separated fields than any other corps in
the Army of the Tennessee. The right wing, under General Smith, was
in the Vicksburg campaign, and after that it went to the Department
of the Gulf, and was with General Banks in his movement up Red
River, and saved that army from defeat; of this there is no doubt
After that, it was sent after Forest, and it was the only command that
I know of that caught and whipped him. The left wing overtook
General Forest at Town Creek in I863, in its march to Decatur in the
rear of Bragg's army, but he did not stay long enough for us to get a
good fight out of him.
From the campaign after Forest, General Smith's command was
sent to the Department of Missouri to drive out Price. There I found
them in December, 1864, when I took command of that department,
in a deplorable condition, without clothing, shoes, or camp equipage.
Under an order from General Grant, I sent them to Nashville, with
all the force in my department, some twenty thousand men all told, to
help General Thomas, and I sent them everything they needed to
clothe and equip them. You all remember how you were frozen in
on the Mississippi, and had to take the cars. One of the pleasantest
recollections of my life is that I received a letter from General Smith,




ADDRESS TO SIXTEENTH ARMY CORPS


35


thanking me for appreciating their condition, and having in Nashville
when they arrived everything they needed. He said that it was the
first time they had been treated decently, and they were thankful they
had fallen into the hands of someone who appreciated them.
At the battle of Nashville it was General Smith, with the right wing
of the Sixteenth Corps, and the troops of the Department of the Missouri, that turned the. left flank of Hood's army, and was practically
in his rear when stopped, and I have heard many officers who were
there say that if he had been let alone he would have captured or
destroyed that wing of the army. Thus ended the eventful career of
the right wing, and its fortunes were' cast with the Army of the
Cumberland in its chase after Hood.
The left'wing was organized from the troops I commanded in the
District of Corinth, and had in it the old Second Division of the
Army of the Tennessee that Grant organized at Cairo, that fought at
Belmont, Henry and Donelson, Shiloh and the two Corinths. It had
on its banners "First at Donelson." I took command right after the
battle of Corinth, where it had been censured by Rosecrans and
praised by Grant for the part it took in the battle of Corinth.
General Grant held us at Corinth as a protection to his communications while the campaign against Vicksburg was going on. In a letter
to me he said he had left us there to protect that flank, for he knew
that if Bragg endeavored to break that line we would stay, so you see
he still had faith in his old division. From Corinth we marched with
Sherman in his celebrated trip from. Memphis to Chattanooga. We
wintered on the line, and rebuilt the Nashville and Decatur Road, and
in his Memoirs General Grant, after describing the condition of the
army, and the necessity for rebuilding the railway from Nashville to
Decatur, speaks thus of the work of the Sixteenth Army Corps.
"General Dodge had no tools to work with except those of the
pioneer-axes, picks and spades. With these he was enabled to intrench his men, and protect them against surprise from small parties
of the enemy, and, as he had no base of supplies until the road could
be. completed back to Nashville, the first matter to consider, after
protecting his men, was the getting in of food and forage from the
surrounding country. He had his men and teams bring in all the
grain they could find, or all they needed, and all the cattle for beef
and such other food as could be found. Millers were detailed from
the ranks to run the mills along the line of the army. Where they
were not near enough to the troops for protection they were taken
down and moved up to the line of the road. Blacksmith shops, with
all the iron and steel found jn them, were used up in like manner.
Blacksmiths were detailed and set to work making the tools necessary




36


ADDRESS TO SIXTEENTH ARMY CORPS


in railroad and bridge building. Axemen were at work getting out
timber for bridges, and cutting fuel for locomotives and cars. Thus
every branch of railroad building, making tools to work with, and
supplying the workmen with food, was all going on at once, and without the aid of a mechanic or workman except what the command
itself furnished. General Dodge had the work assigned to him
finished within forty days after receiving his orders. The number of
bridges to rebuild was I82, many of them over deep and wide chasms.
The length of road repaired was 102 miles."
I only quote a small part of what General Grant says in this connection to show you that while the Sixteenth Corps had its share of
fighting, and praise for it, still it was a corps that Grant called upon
in an emergency, and when he wanted great deeds done, and proves
not only what they could turn their hands to when necessary, but is
also a sample of what our great army was madelof.
In the spring of 1864 we became a part of the great army in the
Atlanta campaign. When we arrived at Chattanooga on the 5th of
May, I called at General Sherman's headquarters. General McPherson, our army commander was there. Sherman said to him: "You
had better send Dodge to take Ship's Gap," McPherson said to him:
"Why, General, that is thirty miles away, and Dodge's troops are not
yet unloaded, and he has no transportation with him." Sherman said:
"Let him try it, and have the transportation follow." We struck out,
and that night at midnight Sprague's brigade of the Fourth Division
of the Sixteenth Corps had gained the gap. The enemy appeared the
next morning. This opened the way through Snake Creek Gap,
planting us in the rear of Johnston's army, and forcing him to
abandon his impregnable position at Dalton.
Our battles in the Atlanta campaign were those of the Army of the
Tennessee. The left wing received continual commendation until the
great battle of the 22nd, when it happened to be in the rear of our
army, and received and defeated the celebrated movement of Hood to
our rear. Sprague's brigade fought all day at Decatur, and saved our
trains. In the battle of the 22nd of July, we had only five thousand
men in line, but met and repulsed three divisions of Hardee's corps,
and McPherson, who stood on our right and witnessed the fight,
watching the charge of Fuller and Mersey, and the breaking of two of
the enemy's columns, spoke of us in the highest terms, and five
minutes later was dead. Our army who knew and loved him, never
could reconcile ourselves to his great loss.
The Battle of Atlanta was one of the few battles of the war where
the attack on the Sixteenth Army Corps caught it on the march in the




ADDRESS TO SIXTEENTH ARMY CORPS


37


rear of the army, without intrenchments or protection of any kind,
both sides fighting in the open.
In his address describing the battle of the 22nd of July, General
Strong, of General McPherson's staff, says: "General McPherson and
myself, accompanied only by our orderlies, rode out and took position
on the right of Dodge's line, and witnessed the desperate assaults of
Hood's army. General McPherson's admiration for the steadiness and
bravery of the i6th corps was unbounded. Had the i6th corps given
away the rebel army would have been in the rear of the 17th and i5th
corps, and would have swept like an avalanche over our supply trains,
and the position of the Army of the Tennessee would have been very
critical.
General Frank P. Blair pays this tribute to the fighting of the i6th
army corps in his official report of the battle of Atlanta. "I started
to go back to my command, and witnessed the fearful assault made
on the i6th army corps, and its prompt and gallant repulse by that
command. It was a most fortunate circumstance for the whole army
that the x6th army corps occupied the position I have attempted to
describe at moment of attack, and, although it does not belong to me
to report upon the bearing and conduct of the officers and men of that
corps, still I cannot withold my expression of admiration for the manner
in which this command met and repulsed the repeated and persistent
attacks of the enemy. The attack upon our flank and rear was made
by the whole of Hardee's corps."
Under General Howard, a part of the left wing took part in the
battle of the 28th of July. On August g9th I was given a Confederate
leave, when that beau-ideal of a soldier, my old-schoolmate and comrade, General T. E. G. Ransom, took command of the corps. The
right wing knew him, for he was with you in the Red River campaign.
He died on a stretcher in command of the corps in the chase after
Hood. The old Second Division had its innings with General Corse
at Altoona, where the fighting, has been immortalized in verse and
song. My fortunes took me away to the command of the Army and
Department of Missouri, and the two divisions of the left wing were
merged, one into the I5th and the other into the I7th corps, and, so
far as the campaigns were concerned, the corps fought in two units,
the right and left wings, and each was a corps command.
The grave of that remarkable soldier, General A. J. Smith, whose
distinguished services were so often recognized by Generals Grant and
Sherman, has not a stone to designate it. The Society of the Army
of the Tennessee is aiding in raising the funds to commemorate his
memory and deeds by erecting a monument in his home in St. Louis.
The I6th army corps had great opportunities in the campaigns it




38           ADDRESS TO SIXTEENTH ARMY CORPS
took part in, and never failed to make the most of them. They went
cheerfully to any work assigned to them. They have left in the war
records a history that they may well be proud of, and every work they
have undertaken has received the strong commendation of their
superior officers.




ADDRESS TO
ARMY OF SOUTH WEST,
At NATIONAL ENCAMPMENT G. A. R., Washington, D. C.,
October, I9o2.
My connection with the United States forces west of the Mississippi
River commenced at the beginning of the war, when I took my
regiment, the Fourth Iowa, to St. Louis, and fell under the command
of Fremont, and'I took part in the campaigns of that Department
until after the battle of Pea Ridge, when I left the command and
went to the Army of the Tennessee. After the Atlanta campaign, in
November, I864, I returned to Missouri as commander of that Department and Army.
Of the transactions of the troops south of Missouri I have very
little knowledge, but I know that the troops which served west of the
Mississippi never had credit for the amount of work, hardships and
exposures they endured. The fact of there having been fought there
but two great battles, Wilson's Creek and Pea Ridge, and two minor
ones, what they did was swallowed up in the great events that occured
east of the Mississippi. Even Pope's campaign opening up a portion
of the Mississippi is hardly ever spoken of.
The battle of Wilson Creek, the first siginal contest west of the
Mississippi, was fought before my command reached St. Louis. The
history of that battle, and the credit that is due to the commander of
that Army, General Lyon, and his men, are well known  There participated in the battle many officers who were afterwards-greatly
distinguished; among them Schofield, Sturgis, Hunter and others. It
was the first battle that called attention to the West, and to the troops
west of the Mississippi. That battle was lost because a portion of the
command did not comprehend and fulfill General Lyon's orders.
This mistake would have been overcome if it had not been for the loss
in the battle of its commander, General Lyon. But the fighting of the
troops and the boldness of the movement immediately attracted the
attention of the country, and held it until after the battle of Pea Ridge.
The Army of the Southwest, which General Curtis commanded, and




4o0


ADDRESS TO ARMY OF SOUTH WEST


which travelled five hundred miles from its base without water or rail
communication, and lived off a barren country, and which fought that
decisive battle of Pea Ridge and cleared the country until nearly the
end of the war of any organized force of the enemy, had more marching and endured more suffering than the great armies I was connected
with east of the Mississippi, and its three days fighting at Pea Ridge
compared favorably with any of our battles, when the numbers engaged are considered.
Then again at the end of the war, the sufferings of the troops that
I took onto the plains in the Indian campaigns in the winters of I864,
I865-6, were far beyond any of the sufferings of any of our armies
during the civil war. Their exposures through the cold weather, and
the brutalities and butcheries of the Indians, which it was impossible
for them to avenge or retaliate, were beyond any description.
Our early campaign in Missouri was without previous experience.
It was simply one soldier standing up against another in battle, and
we had to learn all the tricks of camp life, and from experience how
to take care of our soldiers.
There were a great many funny incidents in the Pea Ridge campaign.
The Southwestern army was organized at Rolla, Missouri, of which
post I was in command. My quartermaster was Captain Philip H.
Sheridan, and my commissary Capt. M. P. Small. No one who knew
or saw Sheridan then thought of the great position he was to occupy
in our army, but when he took hold of that army and stripped it and
fed it, five hundred miles away from rail or water communication, we
all knew that he was a master mind. When he came to me at Rolla,
the first order he gave was to take away about three-quarters of our
transportation. I think we had about two wagons to the company,
and he brought us down to about four to a regiment. You can all
approciate the rebellion I had on my hands when I undertook to enforce his order. I know he stood by and watched to see what I was
going to do. Every regiment and command entered a protest, and
said some very unkind things of him, denouncing him as a regular
officer who had no mercy upon a volunteer, but I had then had experience enough to appreciate our necessities, and started in by stripping
my own regiment, and then enforcing the orders upon the others. We
were not long on that march before they appreciated the foresight of
Sheridan. He had great energy and great resources. He had to run
all the mills along our line of march; he had to forage in every direction, and the punishment that he gave to some of the people to make
them tell where their horses, forage and sweet potatoes were hidden
would astonish those of our people who have been so horrified at the
mild persuasions used for similar purposes in the Philippines.




ADDRESS TO ARMY OF SOUTH WEST


4r


To show you how little we knew of war on our first march in January,
x862, from Rolla to Springfield, Missouri, all the reports we had obtained were that Price and his army were in Springfield. The troops
of our army were divided into two commands, those under Siegel,
composed of two divisions, commanded by Osterhaus and Asboth,
mostly Germans, and two divisions of Americans commanded by Col.
Jeff. C. Davis and Col. E. A. Carr. I commanded a brigade on the
extreme left in Carr's division, and, in accordance with instructions,
put out a company in front of me as skirmishers. It was dark, and
impossible for us to see much, and the first thing I knew I had lost my
skirmishers, and was in great distress until about daylight in the morning, when Siegel's guns and our own were booming away at Springfield.
My company came back mounted on Confederate horses and mules,old hacks that the enemy had left behind them-and brought us news
that there was no enemy in Springfield, and had not been for two or
three days.
As we marched along towards Pea Ridge through the country, Price's
army faced us with a rear guard only, his main body keeping a long
distance ahead of us. At every stream they would halt our advance,
and move out a couple of pieces of their artillery, and put out a strong
skirmish line, which would force our army into line, thinking we were
going to have a battle. My brigade led the advance most of the
time on that march, and as soon as they would line up the officers
would have the boys strip. They would throw down their chickens,
sweet potatoes and everything they had gathered, and by the time they
had gone forward, and the enemy had run, the 36th Illinois, or some
other regiment, would come up and gobble what they had left. About
the third time we lined up I discovered that every boy was hanging
on to his chickens, sweet potatoes and provender, and when I gave
orders to the Colonels to have them throw them aside, the boys made
auswer: "No you don't, Colonel! You can't fool us any more; we
have fed those 36th Illinois fellows as long as we propose to."
At Pea Ridge we were surrounded by Van Dorn, who placed Price's
two divisions in our rear, and he himself on our right flank with
McCullough and McIntosh's divisions. The great Pea Ridge divided
his army, so it was impossible for one part to support the other. His
army was twice as large as that of Curtis, and the fact that it was
divided enabled Curtis to whip his army in detail, so that Van Dorn's
army was virtually whipped before Curtis got his entire force into
the field,-Siegel only coming into battle after Van Dorn's Arkansas
force had left for the South, Jeff C. Davis' division having killed its two
division commahders, and Van Dorn had given Price orders to get out
the best way he could, which forced him to retreat to the East towards
White River.




42


ADDRESS TO ARMY OF SOUTH WEST


After the Pea Ridge campaign the battle of Prarie Grove was fought,
under the command of General F. C. Herring, who was Lieut. Colonel
of the 9th Iowa Infantry, in the battle of Pea Ridge, but as it was not
in my command, I have no knowledge of the detail of it, but from the
reports it evidently was a sharp fight.
In the Spring of i865 Jeff C. Thompson and his command surrendered
to me on the Arkansas line. His command consisted of six thousand
men, but he found he could not gather them, and claimed that not
half of his command was present. When I asked him how it was
possible to get them all together, he suggested that I should send
them rations. I therefore loaded two steamers from St. Louis, and
sent them around by the White River, and Thompson issued his celebrated order bringing the men all in, and there was gathered about
twice the number he had present when he surrendered to my forces.
When asked for his transportation he said that he would show it to
me, and out of the rivers and bayous he run down about one hundred
canoes and flats, as the transportation he had to move his army with.
It was at this time that he made that celebrated speech. When his
soldiers came in without bringing their guns, as he had instructed
them to do, bringing along old shot guns and muskets that were of no
use, he said if they were not satisfied with the generosity of this Government they should emmigrate to Mexico, and he denounced more
than half of them as being soldiers whom he had never seen, stating
that they had stayed in the brush and along the river banks in Arkansas
until the moss had grown upon their heads and backs. From this
speech of his came the celebrated saying of "moss-backs".
A part of my corps fought under that gallant General, A. J. Smith,
in the Banks campaign up the Red River, and there is no doubt but
that his Generalship and the fighting of the two divisions of the i6th
corps saved that army from a great defeat. The commander of one
of his divisions, General T. E. G. Ransom, was a school-mate of mine,
and afterwards came to me in the Atlanta campaign, and commanded
a division under me in the i6th corps.
When I look at the history of all of the operations west of the Mississippi River, and see their results, it is a great gratification to me to
know that all the campaigns, except possibly the one of Banks, were
victories for our side.
When I returned to the command of the Department of the Missouri
in November, i864, I found all the Indian tribes on the plains at war,
occupying all the lines of communication through to the Pacific, and
there was a great demand from the people upon the Government that
those lines should be opened. General Grant sent a dispatch, asking
if a campaign upon the plains could be made in the winter. Having




ADDRESS TO ARMY OF SOUTH WEST


43


spent eight or ten years of my life upon the plains before the war, I
answered that it could, if the troops were properly fed and clothed.
His answer to that was to place all the plains and Indian tribes within
my command, instructing me to make an immediate campaign against
them, and I had, therefore, to move the troops that were at Leavenworth, Fort Riley and other points onto the plains in mid-winter, and
I think it was the I5th Kansas that had thirteen men frozen to death
on the march to Fort Kearney. Those troops on that winter march up
and down those stage and telegraph lines in forty days opened them
up, repaired the telegraph and had the stages running. Then came the
longer campaign of the next summer and next fall, where General Cole's
command suffered so much, and also where General Conner fought
the battle of Tongue River. I remember of the Indians capturing a
company of Michigan troops that were guarding a train that was going
to Fort Halleck, loaded with rations and bacon. They tied some of the
soldiers to the wheels of the wagons, piled the bacon around the wagons, burning them up. A band of this party of Indians was captured
by a batallion of Pawnees, who were far north of them and got on
their trail and surrounded the band that had committed these atrocities. The chief of them, an old man, came forward and spoke to
Major North, who commanded the Pawnees, and holding his hand up
to his mouth he said that he was full of white men up to here, and
was ready to die. The Indians virtually cleaned out the white people
along the stage lines they captured. I took from them a great many
of their prisoners in the fall of i865, when they came into Laramie to
make peace, and the stories of the suffering of the women were such
that it would be impossible to relate them.
In connection with this campaign on the plains, it is a singular fact
that nearly three thousand Confederates took part. When I took
command at St. Louis I found the prisons full of Confederate prisoners.
The war was then virtually at its end, and they were very anxious to
be relieved from prison life, and as we needed forces on the plains, I
obtained authority from the War Department to organize what was
known as the United States Volunteers, and filled the regiments with
these Confederate soldiers, placing over them as officers men and
officers selected from our own command, and thus organized a very
effective force, which did excellent service on the plains, three quarters
of which remained in that country after the war was over.




ADDRESS TO THE
ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE,
DELIVERED AT THE
NATIONAL ENCAMPMENT G. A. R, Washington, D. C.
October, 1902, by Major-General Grenville M. Dodge.
Comrades of Army of the Tennessee:
On the 28th of August, 186i, General U. S. Grant was assigned to
duty in command of the District of Southeast Missouri, with headquarters at Cairo, Ill., and here commenced the organization and
growth of the Army of the Tennessee. It remained under his personal
command, or as a unit of his great army, from the beginning until the
end of the war, except for two short intervals, one after the great
battle of Donelson, and the other after the greater battle of Shiloh,
both of which he won, and gave the first great light and hope to our
country, and it is hard now, after reading all the records, to understand
the reasons for his' being relieved. It appears to have been done
through a misunderstanding, and with no intention of doing injustice
to General Grant.
Following General Grant as commander came General Sherman, a
member of the army almost as long as General Grant. General Sherman was in direct command, or the army served under him as a unit
of his greater army, from the time he assumed command until the end
of the war.
After General Sherman came General McPherson, that ideal soldier,
who commanded the army until he fell in the great battle of Atlanta
on the 22nd of July. Upon his death, General Logan took command
of the army, as the senior officer present, and at the end of the battle
of July 22nd he could say that he had met and defeated Hood's whole
army in the greatest battle of that campaign.
Following General Logan came General 0. O. Howard, the only
General taken from another army to command it in all the history of
the Army of the Tennessee, or even any of its corps. The next day




ADDRESS TO ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE


45


after assuming command General Howard led the army into the great
battle of the 28th of July, which the Confederates said was not a battle,
but a simple killing and slaughtering of their forces. He remained in
command until the end of the rebellion, and at the end of the war
generously gave way to General Logan, so that one of its original
members might command it at the great review here in Washington,
-an act that could come only from such a just and thoughtful soldier
as Howard.
I speak of our army's commanders first, as an army takes its habits
and character from its head, and probably no other army in the world
was so fortunate as to have always at its head great soldiers and great
commanders, recognized as such the world over-two of them. the
peers of any commander that ever stood up in a great conflict.
The army of the Tennessee covered more ground in its campaigns
than all the other armies combined, and all its campaigns were marked
by some great struggle, battle or movement that challenged the admiration of the world. First came Fort Donelson, next Vicksburg
and following that Chattanooga, where it fought on both flanks in
that great battle, one division taking the point of Lookout Mountain
above the clouds. Then came the Atlanta campaign; following that
the stragetical march to the sea, and, finally, that bold movement from
Savannah to Goldsboro, which is considered by tne best critics as one
of the boldest and best planned campaigns of history, one in which
every chance was taken, and every opportunity given the enemy to
concentrate upon an inferior force.
The record of this army is probably the most satisfactory of any
that ever existed, as it was harmonious in all its parts, and had no
jealousies, each of its units to the best of its ability helping the others.
Again, it was modest; it struck blow after blow, and let the world sing
its praises. All its campaigns were great successes, and it never lost
a battle. All its army, corps, division and brigade commanders were
exceptionally able men, and were seldom relieved except to assume
more important commands. Its experiences were more varied than
any other army, for in its campaigns, battles and marches, reaching
from the Missouri River to'the Atlantic, at Washington, over a territory
two thousand miles long and five hundred miles wide, it opened the
Mississippi, it forced its way to the sea, it was reviewed by the
Government of the nation here in this city, and it disbanded and the
men went to their homes without causing an unpleasant comment or
a painful thought in all this broad land.
The Society of the Army of the Tennessee is endeavoring to perpetuate its history and memories by erecting here in this capital of
our great nation monuments to the memory of its dead commanders,




46


ADDRESS TO ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE


which will place before the world, not only their deeds, but the great
events in which our army took so important a part. First came General
McPherson, as he was the first to fall in the great battle of Atlanta.
He fell just after watching the attack in the rear on the i6th army
corps, which held the key to the situation. He was a dear friend of
mine, and the last words he spoke were in praise of the fighting of
that corps. General Sherman in reporting his death, spoke of him as
follows:
"General McPherson fell in battle, booted and spurred, as the gallant and heroic gentleman should wish. Not his the loss, but the
country's, and the army will mourn his death and cherish his memory
as that of one who, though comparatively young, had risen by his
merit and ability to the command of one of the best armies which the
nation had called into existence to vindicate her honor and integrity.
History tells of but few who so blended the grace and the gentleness
of the friend with the dignity, courage, faith and manliness of the
soldier. His public enemies, even the men who directed the fatal shot,
never spoke or wrote of him without expressions of marked respect.
Those whom he commanded loved him even to idolatry, and I, his
associate and commander, fail in words adequate to express my opinion
of his great worth. 
General McPherson was so dear to our old army that the great
victory at the battle of Atlanta was never spoken of by our army except to express our great grief at the loss of our commander. His
faith in what he could accomplish with our army was unbounded.
He spoke of us on July 4, 1863, as follows:
"With tireless energy, with sleepless vigilance, by night and by day,
with battery and with rifle-pits, with trench and mine, you made your
sure approaches, until overcome by fatigue and driven to despair in
the attempt to oppose your irresistable progress, the whole garrison
of over 30,000 men, with all their arms and munitions of war, have,
on this, the anniversary of our National Independence, surrendered to
the invincible troops of the Army of the Tennessee. The achievments of
this hour will give a new meaning to this memorable day, and Vicksburg will brighten the glow of the patriot's heart which kindles at the
mention of Bunker Hill and Yorktown. This is indeed an auspicious
day for you. The God of battle is with you. The dawn of a conquered
peace is breaking upon you. The plaudits of an admiring world will
hail you wherever you go, and it will be an enobling heritage, surpassing all riches, to have been of the Army of the Tennessee on the
Fourth of July, I863."
Next we erected the statue facing Pennsylvania Avenue, of General
John A. Rawlins, who, above all, represented the organization and




ADDRESS TO ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE


47


spirit of our great army, and who shared its fortunes from beginning
to end as chief of staff of its first and greatest commander. In I873,
upon the death of General Rawlins, General John A. Logan spoke of
him thus:
"But there is one whose tongue is now still in death whose name
I cannot forbear to mention; one, who, though gone from our midst,
is with us in memory-for who can forget John A. Rawlins? Faithful
in every duty, true in every trust, though dead he is not forgotten:
though gone forever, yet he will ever live in affectionate remembrance
in the hearts of all who knew him: his name is woven in indelible
colors in the history of our country, and is linked with a fame that is
undying."
General Rawlins, in giving a history of the Army of the Tennessee,
paid this tribute to it:
"In no army did the soldier enjoy greater liberty, consistent with
military discipline, than in the Army of the Tennessee, and in none
were his rights and his life more carefully guarded.
The subordination of the Army of the Tennessee to the policies and
acts of the Government affecting the institution of slavery in the
prosecution of the war, is worthy of the highest commendation. It had
no policy of its own to propose, but went forth, as expressed by the
Legislative Branch of the Government, to do battle in no spirit of
oppression, or for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, or purpose
of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of the States in rebellion; but to defend and maintain the
supremacy of the constitution, and to preserve the Union with all the
dignity, equality and rights of the several States unimpaired. 
The Army of the Tennessee did great deeds in all the departments
of the States' service, and individually and combined illustrated in a
peculiar manner the qualities of noble American Character which
gained success in the field, preserved its fruits by subsequent statesmanship, and by exalted virtue crowned victory with the attributes of
peace and justice."
In April, 9Ioo, we unveiled the beautiful and life-like monument to
General John A. Logan, that brilliant, magnetic soldier, our comrade
from Cairo to Louisville. Of him, at the unveiling, President McKinley
spoke as follows:
" Logan's career was unique. His distinction does not rest upon his
military achievments alone. His services in the legislature of his own
state, in the national House of Representatives, and in the Senate of
the United States would have given him an equally conspicuous place
in the annals of the country. He was great in the forum and in the
field."




48


ADDRESS TO ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE


"He came out of the war with the highest military honors of the
volunteer soldier. Brilliant in battle and strong in military council,
his was also the true American spirit, for when the war was ended he
was quick and eager to return to the peaceful pursuits.of civil life."
General Logan's love and devotion to us only ended with his life,
and at one of our reunions characterized our work thus:
"The Army of the Tennessee was not limited in its scope; the
theater of its operations and the extent of its marches, comprehending
within their bounds an area greater than Greece and Macedonia in
their palmiest days, and greater than most of the leading kingdoms of
Europe at the present day, reaching from the Missouri River on the
north nearly to the Gulf of Mexico on the South, and from the Red
River of Louisiana to the Atlantic Ocean."
Next comes the monument to General William Tecumseh Sherman,
the pedestal of which is upon these grounds. The friendship and
loyalty of Sherman to Grant was the first great cause of the success of
both, and for the harmony that existed in the Army of the Tennessee.
Sherman fell under the command of Grant at Paducah in the spring
of 1862, holding a small command. He was the ideal soldier, as he
dropped from a Department and Army commander to that of a post,
and later a division, without a murmur. Sherman's first words to
Grant, on Feb. 15, 1862, were these:
" I should like to hear from you, and will do everything in my power
to hurry forward to you reinforcements aud supplies, and if I could
be of service myself, would gladly come without making any question
of rank with you or General Smith, whose commissions are of the
same date."
On the same date he wrote again:
"Command me in any way. I feel anxious about you, as I know the
great facilities they (the enemy) have of concentration, by means of
the river and railroads, but have faith in you."
After the war, at a banquet given him in St. Louis in i866, at which,
as commander of that Department, I was present, General Sherman
gave this resum6 of his campaigns.
"You cannot attain great success in war without great risks. I admit we violated many of the old established rules of war by cutting
loose from our base and exposing sixty thousand lives. I had faith in
the army I commanded; that faith was well founded. But there was
the old story exemplified. We had the elephant, and again we had to
put our wits together and we concluded. to kill the elephant. We did
not like to do it. I contended at first when we took Vicksburg, that
we had gained a point which the Southern Confederacy, as belligerents
-so recognized by ourselves and the world-were bound to regard




ADDRESS TO ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE


49


That when we took Vicksburg by all the rules of civilized warfare they
should have surrendered and allowed us to restore Federal power in
the land. But they did not. I claim also that when we took Atlanta,
they were bound by every rule of civilized warfare to surrender their
cause. It was then hopeless, and it was clear to e as daylight that
they were bound to surrender and return to civil life. But they continued the war, and then I had a right under the rules of civilized
warfare to commence a system that would make them feel the power
of the Government, and cause them to succumb to our national
authority. So we destroyed Atlanta, and all that could be used against
us there will have to be rebuilt. The question then arose in my mind
how to apply the power thus entrusted by my Government so as to
produce the result-the end of the war, which was all we desired; for
war is only justifiable among civilized nations to produce peace. There
is no other legitimate rule-except to produce peace. This is the object of war, and it is so universally aknowledged. Therefore, I had
to go through Georgia, and let them see what war meant. I had the
right to destroy their communications, which I did. I made them feel
the consequences of war, so they will never again invite an invading
army. Savannah fell, as a matter of course. Once in our power, the
question then arose again, 'what next?' All asked 'what next?' I
asked advice again and again, but I got mighty little, I can tell you
except from Grant, who is always generous and fair. No advice-no
word at Savannah, save from Mr. Lincoln, who asked 'what next?
I told him I would tell him after a little while.
Then came the last movement, which I do contend involved more
labor and risk than anything which I have done, or ever expect to do
again. I could take Charleston without going there. First, by segregating it from the rest of the country so it could not live. Man must
have something to live upon. He must go where there is something
to eat, therefore I concluded to break up the railroads, so the people
had to get out of Charleston or perish. Then the next thing was to place
the army in Columbia, which I tell you is more of a place in the South
than you are aware of. Years ago I thought Columbia would be the
scene of the great and final struggle of the war. I thought our Western army would go Eastward and our Eastern army Southward to
Columbia, and that we would fight it out there. The people there
regard it as a place of security. They sent their treasure there and
their wines and liquors, which my friend Blair remembers so well.
But if you place an army where the enemy say you cannot, you gain
an object. All military readers will understand the principle; and,
therefore, when I placed my army in Columbia, I fought a battle, I
reaped the fruits of a victory-bloodless, but still it produced military




5~


ADDRESS TO ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE


results. The next question was to place my army still further where
I could be in communication with the old Army of the Potomac-where
we could destroy the life of the Confederate armies, for it seemed at
one time as though they were determined to fight to the 'last ditch.'
So we went to Goldsboro, and then I hastened to see Mr. Lincoln
and Grant for the last time. We talked the matter over and agreed
perfectly. Grant was moving then. I had been fifty odd marching
days'on light rations. My men were shoeless and without pants, and
needed clothing and rest. I hurried back to Goldsboro, and dispatched everything with as great rapidity as I could, and on the very
day I appointed I started in pursuit of Johnston, let him be where he
might. Now understand, that in this vast campaign we had no objective point on the map; all we had to do was to pursue the Confederate
armies wherever they might go and destroy them whenever we could
catch them. The great difficulty was to bring them to bay. You can
chase and chase a hare until the end of time, but unless you bring
him to bay you cannot catch him. Grant was enabled to bring Lee
to bay by means of Sheridan's cavalry. I did not have sufficient cavalry; if I had I might have brought Johnston to bay; but with my then
force I could not, because my cavalry was inferior to his in numbers.
Therefore, when Lee surrendered, Johnston saw as clearly as I had
seen months before, that his cause was gone. I had been thinking of
it for months; therefore, when he met me and announced the fact that
he was 'gone up' I was prepared to receive it. It was just like a
familiar song. It seemed to the North a new thing. We had expected
it, and when they gave up there was an end of it, as we supposed.
How did they give up, was the question; gave up-that was all. No
use in fighting any longer. On what terms did they give up? I have
described sufficiently clear in my official report all the conversation
that took place, and all I will say is that the North seemed to be taken
unawares, although every paper in the land and every county court
orator had preached about peace for the last four years; yet when it
came they did not recognize it. All I claim is that I was prepared for
it from the start. The moment Johnston spoke to me I saw peace at
once, and I was honest enough to say so. But all that is now past
and I am satisfied in my heart that we have peace."
The monument to our old commander is nearly complete. We
expect to unveil lit next October, and, as President of the Society
of the Army of the Tennessee, and as President of the Commission
which has in charge the erection of the monument, I give you a cordial invitation to be present. You will receive due notice, and proper
arrangements will be made for the occasion, and you will meet here your
comrades of the Armies of tie Cumberland, Potomac and Ohio, who




ADDRESS TO ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE


5 


have already signified their intention of being present to honor the
memory of our old commander.
And now, my comrades, it is with the greatest satisfaction that I say
to you that after seven years continued effort, this year we obtained
an appropriation from Congress of $250,000 to be used in the erection
of a monument upon these grounds to General U. S. Grant, and the
model for it will soon be selected, to this modest, charitable and just
soldier and statesman. The whole world has given its tribute. From
those whom we fought and defeated have come the most gallant words
of praise, and touching in sympathy. President Lincoln, above all
others, recognized his power and ability when he handed him his
commission and gave him command of all the armies, and assured
him that he should not in any way interfere with him. Armed him
with all the powers of the President, with carte blanche to use them
as he saw fit. Grant made his answer at Appomattox, bringing peace
to our nation and gratitude to the conquered. General Grant was a
man of few words, and when called upon to speak of the Army of the
Tennessee, paid it this tribute:
"As an army, the Army of the Tennessee never sustained a single
defeat during four years of war. Every fortification which it assailed
surrendered. Every force arrayed against it was either defeated, captured or destroyed. No officer was ever assigned to the command of
that army who had aftewards to be relieved from it, or to be reduced
to another command. Such a history is not accident."
And now, my comrades, one of our number who has left us by an
assassin's hand, whose heart, words and acts were ever for us, who
from a major in our army became the best-loved President of our
nation, Comrade William McKinley, at one of our gatherings paid
this tribute to you:
"It is recorded that in eighteen months' service the Army of the
Tennessee captured eighty thousand men with flags and arms, including six hundred guns. A greater force than was engaged on either
side in the terrible battle of Chicamauga. From the fields of triumph
in the Mississippi Valley it turned its footsteps towards the eastern
seaboard, brought relief to the forces atChattanooga and Nashville,
pursued that peerless campaign from Atlanta to the seaboard under
the leadership of the glorious Sherman, and planted the banners of
final victory on the parapets of Fort McAllister.
It is said that the old Army of the Tennessee never lost a battle and
never surrendered a flag. Its corps badges-' forty rounds' of the
Fifteenth Corps; the fleeting arrow of the Seventeenth Corps; the
disc, from which four bullets have been cut, of the Sixteenth Corps



52


ADDRESS TO ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE


are all significant of the awful business of cruel war, all of them suggestive of the missiles of death.
It gave the Federal army Grant, Sherman and Sheridan; McPherson,
Howard, Blair, Logan, Hazen, John E. Smith, C. F. Smith, Halleck.
Rawlins, Prentiss, Wallace, Porter, Force, Leggett, Noyes Hickenlooper, C. C. Walcutt and your distinguished President, who flamed
out the very incarnation of soldierly valor before the eyes of the
American people; all have a secure place in history and a secure one
in the hearts of their countrymen."
On this anniversary, as my closing words to you, two verses of General John Tilson's tribute are most appropriate:
"Ho! comrades of the brave old band, we gather here once more,
With smiling eye and clasping hand, to' fight our battles o'er.
To qualf from out the brimming cup of old-time memory,
And bright relight the pathway of our old Tennessee.
As myriad sparks of war's romance our meetings warm inspire;
The heady fight, the anxious march, the jolly bivouac fire;
The days of doubt, of hope, of care, of danger and of glee;
Oh, what a world of racy thought illumines Tennessee.
Our roster thins, as years pass on we drop off one by one;
Ere long, too soon, to yearly call, there will be answer-none;
Then as along the record page these mourning columns creep,
The whisper comes to closer still our living friendships keep.
Another thought we forward cast to that not distant day,
When left of all our gallant band will be one veteran gray,
And here's to him who meets alone-wherever he may be,
The last, the lone survivor of the grand old Tennessee."
ifi




REMARKS AT


LOYAL LEGION, NEW YORK COMMANDERY,.
ON DEATH OF
PRESIDENT 4MCKINLEY.
It is impossible for me to conceive of a brain so brutal that it would
raise an assassin's hand to kill so kindly a man as President McKinley,
who spent his entire life in working for the benefit of mankind. It
seems strange that in our free country, our rulers are not as safe as
the greatest despots in the world. It is difficult for me to accept
the fact that I shall never meet again President McKinley, who has
been so long a close and dear friend. I have known him for twenty
years, and intimately since 1892. In that year the McKinley Tariff
Bill, which brought McKinley such great prominence in this nation
and the world, became a law. At that time I was in Europe on
business, and had travelled through Sweden, Norway, Germany and
France, and the protests against the bill in all those countries was
something beyond the conception of any of our people, in fact, they
were so bitter against America and Americans that they were hardly
treated with common decency. Knowing the feeling in those countries, even before the bill had an opportunity to be tested, also the
fact that most of the Americans residing in Europe expressed the
same feeling in relation to it. I wrote to Representative McKinley
stating the facts as I found them there. I wrote him two or three
letters, and in the last one expressed to him the opinion that notwithstanding the bitter feeling existing against the law and himself, I
believed in the near future both it and he would be as popular as they
were now unpopular. Upon receipt of my letters McKinley wrote
me, stating that he was very much interested in them, and asking me,
if I remained abroad, to continue them, and when I returned he would
be pleased to see me and talk with me about them. It was a year
after my return before 1 saw him, and the sentiment in this country
had already begun to change. When he met me his first words were
in relation to the prophesy in my letters.




54


LOYAL LEGION ON DEATH OF MC KINLEY


In the fall of 1894 the Society of the Army of the Tennessee held
its reunion at Council Bluffs on the Missouri River. At that time
McKinley was making a speaking trip with a special train of cars
through Nebraska and the Western country. He came to the Bluffs
just as our reunion had closed. He had intended to reach there to
take part in the reunion. He insisted that we should join him on his
way East, and my car was attached to his train. Several of the distinguished veterans of that old army were with me, also the sons of our
two great commanders, Grant and Sherman. As we travelled past at
every siding and station great crowds collected to hear McKinley.
He would go to the end of the car and make his acknowledgments,
and state that he had with him a portion of the Society of the Army
of the Tennessee, also the sons of the two great generals of the war,
Grant and Sherman, and that he knew they preferred to hear them
rather than himself, and then he would introduce them to the crowd,
and they, of course, were received with great enthusiasm, and each in
his own way made short speeches of acknowledgment, and acquitted
themselves very creditably, often receiving the commendation of
McKinley. This showed McKinley's tact in utilizing these two young
men, and bringing them to the front in place of himself. With him
on this trip was his devoted wife, and no one could see the tender
attentions that he paid her without realizing that the great love this
nation had for him on account of the tender relation that existed
between them was fully deserved.
At the beginning of the Spanish War I was called to Washington,
and with some other veterans of the civil war, listened to the discussions upon the different problems and schemes that were presented
for the conducting of that war. There were presented to the President
many different problems and plans and service-chimerical schemes,
but we soon discovered that discussions were proper ones and he took
the course which indicated that he was competent to handle the
situation. He concentrated on the Southern coast the little regular
army, ready for any emergency, while the volunteer force was being
organized and concentrated in camps which some thought could be
put in the field in thirty days, but which the old army officers and
officers of the regular army knew would require at least six months to
prepare properly for efficiency in a campaign. Later during the war
it became my duty to see and read all the records of the Spanish War,
every letter, every order and every telegram, and I was most favorably
impressed with the excellent judgment and tact, and the prompt
decision of our President. Even in cases of emergency where he had
not to act upon the moment without consultates, his decisions were
prompt and definite, and I know of no single case in which they were




LOYAL LEGION ON DEATH OF MC KINLEY


55


not right. He impressed us all with the fact that he was not only a
great statesman, but a great soldier. The wonderful handling by the
administration of Cuba, the Philippines and China has builded a
reputation for this country, and a monument to its statesmanship, its
generalship and its fighting qualities that no one now even attempts
to pull down, and one that no matter how severely it may have been
criticised, is the wonder of the world.
My last meeting with President McKinley was in April last, at the
unveiling of the monument to Major-General John A. Logan. He
was then preparing for his proposed trip to California, and I suggested to him that it was a pretty long and tedious trip, and asked
him if he was making it for pleasure, or as a duty. His answer to me
was that he was looking forward to it with a great deal of pleasure,
but lie said, "you know General I necessarily will be under a good deal
of strain, for I will have to speak at every point we stop, and I have
to be careful and study and consider what I say." He also said that he
desired to see the Pacific Coast country, as it was developing so fast,
and there were so many questions arising, and such demands from the
people there for legislation, that he would like to see personally what
they needed so he could act upon questions understandingly. On the
day of the unveiling of the statue, in riding up from the White House
with him in the procession, his four years of administration came up,
and in discussing it he said to me: "the greatest benefit of my
"administration to our country and the greatest pleasure to me is
"that the two sections of our country have come together as one
"people in interest, and there is no longer any sectional line;-in
"fact sectionalism  had been abolished.  If there is any of that
" sentiment existing, the opportunity given during the Spanish,
"Philippine and Spanish Wars to all sections to join in upholding the
"flag, dissipated it, and none were more prompt or more satisfactory
"than the responses from the South." The policy laid down by
President McKinley at Buffalo showed a wonderful grasp of the
situation and of the necessities of this nation, and of its future needs.
General Grant, when he was entering upon a battle or a campaign,
used to call around him his principal officers for the purpose of
explaining to them the plans of the battle, and what he expected each
to do. He did not consult them as to their opinions, but simply gave
in detail what he had determined to accomplish, and they discussed
their part in it, and when he felt that they had thoroughly mastered
it, he used to say to them " Gentlemen, I see you grasp the situation,
and that wins the battle." McKinley in his administration has shown
that he also grasped the situation, and of necessity won the battle.
The policy pursued by him in his four years administration, the policy




56          LOYAL LEGION ON DEATH OF MC KINLEV
outlined for the future, has not only won the support of this nation,
but it has made us a world power.
On such an occasion as this I always think of an incident that
occurred during the first prominent battle in which I was engaged.
After fighting for two days, on the second night details were sent out
to bury the dead. The detail from my command had dug the trenches
and laid the boys in them, and covered them with their overcoats, and
thought that the commanding officer should be present when the final
good-by to their comrades was said. They sent a young soldier to me
requesting me to join them in the funeral work. It was a dark night,
and carrying a lantern, the young boy took me through the woods to
the place where the comrades were being laid away, and as the earth
was shovelled in upon them this young boy said to me: ' Colonel!
my captain lies there, and no better captain ever lived." So we can
say of President McKinley, our captain lies in Canton, and no better
President ever lived.




NORWICH UNIVERSITY BANQUET
New York 1902.
I take great pleasure in welcoming you to the banquet of the New
York Association of Norwich University. The distinguishing feature
of this university is that nine-tenths of its students are dependent
upon their own efforts, not only for their education, but their future
in the world, and there is no doubt that from this fact so many of its
cadets have been successful in all the walks of life. It is a military
college. Its first President was the first Commandant of West Point,
and from its organization until today it has stood first in the records
of the War Department as compared with other institutions of a
similar character, and second only to West-Point.
In the Mexican War its President, Truman R. Ransom, and most of
the cadets entered the service of the United States. Ransom was
Colonel of the New England Regiment, and fell in the assault upon
Chapultapec.
In the civil war ninety per cent. of its living cadets entered the
service, mostly as officers, on one side or the other, and, as the history
of the university shows, many of them ruse to the highest rank and
highest commands in the service. The university received the commendations of Generals Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas and others,
and Norwich University cadets were always selected next to those
from West Point, for important and difficult demands. There are
present here tonight those who were cadets during the civil war
whose whole class enlisted. In fact the whole university turned out,
suspending the. functions of the institution for two years.
In the Spanish War it is said that eighty-five per cent. of its living
cadets volunteered for service, and were distinguished on many fields.
Many of them are still in the service.  It was equally as well represented in our navy in both wars. It was one of its cadets that struck
the first effective blow in the Spanish War, and another cadet, Commander Colvocorresses, who commanded one of the vessels, after the
naval battle at Manila went alongside the Olympia to pay his respects
and congratulate Admiral Dewey upon his great victory. Admiral




58


NORWICH UNIVERSITY BANQUET


Dewey, who saw Colvocorresses as he came alongside in his launch,
leaned over the rail and said, ' Col. old N U. is ahead yet," showing
no matter what his after life or education had been, he gave the credit
for his success to his al/na mater.
In civil life its cadets have greatly distinguished themselves as engineers, and in other professional lines. Probably I can say that there
is no one who has had as many of the cadets of Norwich University
under him as I have, both in the civil war, and later in the internal
improvements of the country, and to my knowledge there has been no
failure among them. They have universally taken their places and
held them until they went to higher positions.. The university to-day
is the military college of the State of Vermont, which assigns to it a
representative cadet for each senatorial district.
I believe myself there is no education so beneficial to a young man
as that which gives discipline, respect for power and obedience to
orders, and the drill and exercise add to the health of the student, so
when he steps out into the world to fight his way he is better equipped
than those who have gone through.college without this physical and
mental training.
I am happy to say that the university has never been so prosperous
as it is to-day. The interest in it is growing, and it is a great satisfaction to the old cadets to see and feel the high esteem in which it is
held throughout the country. In comparison with other colleges few
in numbers, but in acts and all things that go to make and defend a
great country we stand the peer of the best institutions of learning
our country has produced.




REMARKS AT
ARMY OF POTOMAC REUNION,
Niagara Falls, N. Y.
When you consider that it is now thirty-three years after the war,
that the Government has published every report, letter and order that
was of any moment, you will agree with me that it is difficult to
interest an army audience in talking about another army, and I shall
not detain you long on that subject There are, however, some incidents of General Grant's first visit to your army, his return to ours and
the planning of the grand campaign that was to end the war that may
interest you
When General Grant was called East to receive his commission and
assume command of all the armies, the Army of the Tennessee was
camped along the railway from Columbia, Tennessee to Decatur and
Huntsville, Alabama  General Sherman had taken our Commander,
General McPherson, and had left Logan and my corps to shift for
themselves, while he made a short campaign with the x7th corps from
Vicksburg to Meridian, destroying all railway communications in
Mississippi preparatory to our I864 campaign. General Grant returned'
from  Washington in December to Tennessee    He met General
Sherman in Nashville and called there to meet him several Corps
Commanders of the Army of the Tennessee and General Sheridan of
the Army of the Cumberland.   If I remember rightly, there were
present Generals Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, McPherson, Logan,
Rawlins and myself. All of us of the Army of the Tennessee were a
hard looking crowd. None of us had seen Nashville or any base of
supplies since we had marched from the Mississippi River to Chattanooga and had been hard at work building railways and foraging.
We arrived in Nashville late in the afternoon and General Sherman
took us to General Grant's headquarters.  General Grant suggested
that we should call upon the Military Governor of Tennessee, Andrew
Johnson, and pay our respects to him. We, of course, followed
General Grant and were introduced to Governor Johnson.  I remember that our uniforms were greatly worn, one or two of us wearing
blouses with army overcoats, and he looked at us with a very quizzical
eye, until General Grant said to excuse us that he had not given us
time since we reached the city to change our suits, but Grant knew




60o


ARMY OF POTOMAC


we had no others. Governor Johnson was then a very radical man
and was very emphatic in informing us that while he was Military
Governor of Tennessee no rebel would receive much consideration
from him, and brought his fist down on a piano in the room with such
force that the sound from it startled us all, and we left there with the
idea that rebels in Tennessee had better get out, but we soon found
that his words were much stronger than his acts, for I hardly ever got
my hands on rebel stock or supplies that I did not find Johnson trying
to pull them off
After our visit, General Sherman suggested that we should all go
to the theater that evening, and under his lead we went to the principal
opera house to hear the plav of Hamlet. We were all strangers in.
Washington, even General Grant was not well known.  We paid our
way in and found the theatre crowded with soldiers going to and
returning from veteran furloughs. General Sherman; who you all
know was a great lover of the theatre, sat along side of me and soon
commenced criticising the play, earnestly protesting that it was being
murdered. I had to check him several times and tell him unless he kept
quiet the soldiers in the audience would recognize him and there
would be a scene. We had entered late, and there soon came on the
scene where Hamlet soliliquizes over the skull of Yorrick.  The
audience was perfectly still endeavoring to comprehend the actor's
words, when a soldier far back in the audience rose up and in a clear
voice called out, as the actor held up the skull, "Say pard, What is it,
Yank or Reb?" The house appreciated the point and was instantly in
an uproar, and General Grant said we had better leave, so we went
quietly out, no one discovering Grant's or Sherman's presence.
Sherman immediately suggested that we should find an oyster-house
and get something to eat, and General Rawlins was put forward as
guide and spokesman. He found a very inviting place.  We went in
and found there was but one large table in the place. There was one
man sitting at it and Rawlins in his modest way, without informing
the man who his party was, asked him if he would change to a smaller
table and let us have that one.  The man said the table was good
enough for him and kept on eating, and Rawlins backed out into the
street again. Sherman said if we depended on Rawlins we would get
nothing to eat and said he would see what could be done.  He hailed
a man who pointed out another saloon kept by a woman and to this
Sherman took us and she served us what we then considered a very
nice oyster stew. As we sat around the table, we talked more than we
ate, and by the time we had half finished our supper the woman came
in and asked for the pay and said we must leave, as under the military
rules her house must close at 12 midnight and it was then a few




ARMY OF POTOMAC


6r


minutes after that hour, so out we got and took our way to Grant's
headquarters, where we bunked down the best we could during the
night. Some of the staff heard of our evening's adventure and gave
the news to the press and the next morning before breakfast all the
parties were present to apologize to Grant that they did not recognize
him, as we were out of our own jurisdiction and in that of the Army
of the Cumberland, but Grant in his modest way satisfied them that
he had no complaint. However, there poured in on him for all of us
complimentary tickets and invitations to almost everything in Nashville.
After breakfast we all assembled in a large room at headquarters to
hear what General Grant had to say to us. We were all anxious to
hear of his visit to the Army of the Potomac, and his opinion of it,
and Sherman soon got him to talking about it. He said it was the
finest army he had ever seen, far superior to any of ours in equipment,
supplies and transportation. He said however, that the officers he
talked with considered he would have a much more difficult problem
on his hands than he had had in the West and he said to Sherman
that some officer who both of them knew, but whose name I have
forgotten, told him, "You have not faced Bobby Lee yet," and as he
said it, I could see that twinkle in Grant's eye that we often saw there
when he meant mischief. Grant, after discussing the Army of the
Potomac and having nothing but praise for it, informed us that he
should make his headquarters with that army and leave Sherman to
command the armies of the West, also informing us that he proposed
to take several of us East with him. Sherman protested strongly
against this and it was finally compromised by his taking Sheridan
and leaving the rest of us with Sherman. During the two or three
days we were with Grant, he outlined in a general way his plan of
campaign that every army should move' as early as possible in the
Spring,. all on the same day against the enemy, so that Lee and
Johnston could not detach any of their commands to reinforce the
others. He said, " I will try to keep Lee from sending any force to
Johnston," but he said to Sherman, "If he does, I will send you two
men where he sends one." He also informed us of the necessity of
closing the war with this campaign.
Our visit with Grant ended, he took Sherman as far as Cincinnati
with him, to talk over and complete their plans, while we returned to
our commands to fit them out for the campaign. General Sherman
has since pointed out to me in the Burnett House at Cincinnati the
room they occupied the night before they parted, and where over
their maps, the final orders were given him and final arrangements
made that inaugurated the two great campaigns of Richmond and




62


ARMY OF POTOMAC


Petersburg in the East and Atlanta in the West. After the Atlanta
campaign I paid General Grant a visit at City Point. I reached his
headquarters in October and spent two weeks with him, and saw the
armies of the James and Potomac. Evenings we would sit around
his camp-fire, and in his genial. comprehensive way, he told us of his
campaign and the great battles you had fought and brought out fully
to me what a great army you were. I asked him what he claimed for
the Battle of the Wilderness. There had been great discussion, as
you know, about it, and Grant with the same twinkle of the eye that
I had seen at Nashville said " I only claim that after that battle, and
I took'the initiative on the march towards Richmond, that the Army
of the Potomac was no longer afraid of Bobby Lee."  He had not
forgotten his talk with us at Nashville.
Now you have had Grant's opinion of your great army, and as my
toast is the Army of the Tennessee, I will close by giving you General
Grant's description of that army when called upon to respond to the
same toast at one of our reunions. He said, "As an army, the Army
of the Tennessee never sustained a single defeat during four years
of war. Every fortification which it assailed surrendered.  Every
force arrayed against it was either defeated, captured or destroyed.
No officer was ever assigned to the'command of that army who had
afterwards to be relieved from it or to be reduced to another command. Such a history is not accident."




GEN. G. M. DODGE ON "WATER CURE."


The New York Evening Post has thus been "called down" by Gen.
Grenville M. Dodge, who is well known throughout Iowa and the
Nation as one of the leading corps commanders of the Union army
during the Civil war:
To the Editor of the Evening Post.-As one who has had some
experience in the necessities, usages and cruelties of. war, which
always prevail during a campaign in an enemy's country, I am surprised at the position of your journal, and its bitterness against the
alleged action of Major Glenn, Lieut. Conger and Assistant Surgeon
Lyon.
The testimony of Sergeant Riley, upon which you base your attack
on these officers, goes to prove that they gave the water cure to a
Filipino, who had been made presidente in one of the provinces by
our government, who had taken the oath of allegiance to our country,
and then used his official position to cover his acts as captain of an
insurgent company which was acting in arms against our army and
within our lines. Therefore, he was a traitor and a spy, and his every
act was a violation of the laws of war, and branded him an outlaw
and guerrilla. If these are the facts, under the usages of war these
officers were justified in what they did; in fact; if they had shot the
traitor, they would never have been called to account, and in all
probability this is what would have happened to him in the Civil war.
An officer has great latitude under such circumstances, and it is not
safe or fair to condemn one for almost any act that detects a traitor
and spy in arms against the government which he has sworn to
protect, and which has put him in a position of trust. You ignore
entirely this side of the question, and only treat Major Glenn's acts as
cruelties to peaceable Filipino citizens. I can remember when the
journals of this country upheld and applauded an officer who, in the
Civil war, ordered a man shot if he attempted to haul down the
American flag, and cannot understand the present hysterics of some
journals over the terrible violation of the laws of war in punishing a
traitor, caught in the act, with the water cure only. The treatment
may have been severe, but it is not permanently harmful.




64


GEN. G. M. DODGE ON WATER CURE


I am astonished that these fearfully wrought-up journals have no
word of commendation for our soldiers in the Philippines, who have
suffered untold cruelties, assassinations, burning by slow fires, burial
alive, mutilations and atrocities, who have submitted to every indignity without resentment or complaint, and I have been greatly gratified
over their excellent behavior under such trying circumstances. In
their comments, these journals are very careful not to say why these
punishments are given to such traitors, knowing well if they did our
people would look upon the acts as one of the necessities of war, and
would wonder at the leniency of Major Glenn and his command.
GRENVILLE M. DODGE.
NEW YORK, April 17.
There can be no doubt that "war is hell," no matter whether it be
on the Philippine Islands or any other place on the world. There has
been much howling over the administration of "the water cure" in
the Philippines, but every man who has had one year's experience in
real war will admit that that "cure" is not so severe as killing or
wounding captured enemies who have knowledge of hidden arms or
other army supplies. Every one of the "water cured" Filipinos was
given the opportunity to escape that punishment, but refused to tell
what he knew and was therefore rightly punished until he was willing
to tell the truth. Gen. Dodge's letter proves that the punishment was
justified, and his opinion will be sustained by every person who has
knowledge of "the necessities, usages and cruelties of war, which
"always prevail during a campaign in an enemy's country." The
truth is that the armies of the United States have been too lenient in
the Philippines. That is the reason why the war has been so long
continued, and the only reason why the final peace will be still further
delayed. War is never a picnic, but should at all times be made
terrible in order that peace and safety may be speedily gained. "The
water cure" is inclined to be slightly irritating to the throats of the 
traitors in the Philippines, it is true, but it is not so bad or so cruel as
wounding them for life, or killing them. The yellow journals may
continue to howl, but the loyal American people will sustain the     a
soldiers of the Nation in every effort to compel peace that comes
within the rules of war.




ADDRESS TO
NEW YORK COMMANDERY,
Military Order of Loyal Legion.
ON   CRUELTIES     IN  THE    PHILIPPINES.
I desire to enter my protest and call the attention of the companions
to the position of a portion of the public press, and some people,
towards our army in the Philippines, and what they assert are cruelties
perpetrated there.
There is a certain portion of the press, and also of the people, who
are and always have been absolutely opposed to the operations of our
army in the Philippines. They were very anxious to push us into a
war which we were all opposed to, but after getting us there they
refused to accept the results, and have persistently opposed everything
done that was not in exact accordance with their views. In order to
work upon the sympathies of the people, some of the papers are publishing pictures showing our soldiers in the very act of committing
great outrages; the pictures were manufactured in their own offices,
as were also most of the outrages complained of. You have not, however, seen in these papers any pictures portraying the cruelties perpetrated upon our soldiers, which have been worse than any acts ever
committed by the savages in our wars with them; they are in fact, too
revolting to relate. I have had much to do with Indian warfare, but
have never seen any cruelties to be compared with those inflicted upon
our soldiers by the Filipinos, and these occurrences were not rare, but
general,-happening all the time.  Very little has been said on
this subject, for it was not the policy of the Government to have the
stories of these atrocities printed, or brought before the people, but
now that our army is being so bitterly attacked, it is time that the
soldiers' side of the question should be presented, and we are learning
of the soldiers who have been assassinated, their feet burned, buried
alive, killed by slow burning fires, their bowels cut open and wound
around trees. The Filipinos indulged in every torture and indignity
that was possible, and, as a general thing, our soldiers did not retaliate.
How they managed to refrain from taking vengeance is beyond my
comprehension, but their action is greatly to their credit and honor.




66


ADDRESS TO NEW YORK COMMANDERY


The question I wish to bring before you, however, is what are the
rights of an officer in such matters; what are his duties and privileges
in war in an enemy's country that is under martial law? Take for
instance, General Smith's position when he was sent to Samar, with
instructions to wipe out the insurrection there. He is said to have
issued instructions to kill everybody found in arms that was over ten
years of age, and to burn the country, if it was necessary to wipe out
the insurrection, and the result is that in ninety days, or less, he did
wipe out the insurrection, and without any great loss on our side or
on the part of the enemy.  Now they are denouncing him for a
threat,-not an act. The temptation to retaliate must have been very
great, for the treatment the 9th Infantry received from those savages
was nothing short of murder, followed with the most horrible
mutilation, by a people who pretended to be their friends and at peace.
In the ninety days he was operating there General Smith brought the
island to peace, everybody in it has surrendered, and it is quiet. If he
had made war under the methods advocated, allowing no one to be
hurt, in all probability the, subjugation of the island would have
required a year's time, and there would have been ten times the suffering and loss of life that actually occurred. He simply followed the
plan of war that was pursued by Grant, Sherman and other commanders in the Civil War, that is, made it. just as effective and short
as possible. You know Sherman's position was that after a certain
length of time when an enemy had been whipped, it was their duty to
cease making war, and if they did not do so, he considered that any
means were justifiable in order to bring it to an end. He stated this
very clearly in his St. Louis speech. He stated the case as follows:
"I claim that when we took Vicksburg by all the rules of civilized
warfare the Confederates should have surrendered, and allowed us to
restore peace in the land. I claim also that when we took Atlanta
they were bound by every rule of civilized warfare to surrender their
cause, which was then hopeless, and it was clear as daylight that they
were bound to surrender and return to civil life, but they continued
the war, and then we had a right under the rules of civilized warfare
to commence a system that would make them feel the power of the
Government, and make them succumb. I had to go through Georgia 
to let them see what war meant. I had a right to destroy, which I did,
and I made them feel the consequences of war so fully they will never
again invite an invading army."
You all know of the troubles that occurred in the border states during
the Civil War, and of the cruelties to the families of union men who
entered our army. It was father against son, brother against brother,
and, as General Sherman said, "it was cruelty, and there was no re



ADDRESS TO NEW YORK COMMANDERY


67


fining it." We know what severe orders were given for treatment of
enemies within our lines, when their acts were in violation of the laws
of war. In one case torpedoes were placed under a road over which
our troops were marching, and several soldiers were killed. Sherman
happened to come along just at that time, and said to the Colonel of
the Ist Alabama Cavalry, which was his escort: "Burn the country
within fifteen miles surrounding this spot." You all know what that
meant; it was a license under which other things besides burning was
done. An eye witness describes Sherman's march to the sea and
through the Carolinas as a " cloud of smoke by day and a pillar of fire
by night." Who ever made the suggestion that Sherman's uniform
should be stripped off for this, or that he should be shot, as some of
our representatives in Congress and our press now demand should be
done for making war in earnest.
Take another case, where Captain Anderson captured a train of
convalescent unarmed union soldiers in North Missouri, and placed
them in line and shot every one of them. Shortly afterwards Colonel
Johnson, of the Missouri State Militia, who was following Anderson,
came up. Anderson attacked this militia command of I60 men and
killed 143, only 17 getting away. Only one man was taken alive, and
he saved himself by giving a masonic sign. The war records are full
of cases of individual acts, and I select one of which I had personal
knowledge. It is found in volume 38 of the war records. The orders
in Missouri at that time were that any person who harbored a guerilla,
and did not report the fact to the nearest commanding union officer,
should receive the same treatment as the guerilla. A man by the
name of McReynolds violated these orders, and harbored Quantrell,
the guerilla, and the officer who detected it after stating all the facts
and evidence, reported to me as follows: "On consultation with the
squadron commanders, Captain Hamblin and Lieut. Grain, it was
decided to execute McReynolds, which was carried out under my
orders. R. M. Box, Capt. Co. H., 7th Cavalry, Missouri State Militia."
In reporting this case to the Adjutant General in Washington I did
not approve it, as my investigation showed that the statements of
McReynolds' acts were true. I did not censure the officers, but issued
an order that officers should follow more closely the orders of the
Department, and ended that order as follows: " Hereafter men caught
in arms will have no mercy shown them " General John McNeill of
Missouri took I2 citizens out and shot them, it being claimed they
were connected with guerillas that shot a union man.  In some
History it is known as the Palmyra massacre. It is claimed that the
union men turned up alive. If the reports of the numbers of robbers,
guerillas and outlaws who were shot on sight in Kentucky, Missouri,




68


ADDRESS TO NEW YORK COMMANDERY


Tennessee and elsewhere by both sides in 1864 and i865 could be
gathered up they would furnish retaliations and cruelties enough
for these water cure journals for years.
Consider this matter in a broader sense. Take the order of General
Grant to General Sheriden to make the Shenandoah Valley a barren
waste; it was absolutely destroyed so the enemy could not again
occupy it.  I can see no difference between a barren waste than
Smith's order to make Samar a "howling wilderness." Take the
order I received to go to the rear of Bragg's army and destroy the
valley of the Tennessee, and all the supplies gathered there for the
use of his army, which valley was burned from Bear River to Decatur.
These were orders from principal officers in our army, and I only
quote them to show the contrast between that time and the present.
Senators in the places in Congress find it necessary in these days to
take up the question. Senator Rawlins of Utah made an attack upon
our officers, and especially upon General Chaffee, which was nothing
short of disgraceful, and should not be allowed to go without vigorous
condemnation. He represents a state and people under whose orders
Lieutenant Gunnison and his party were massacred by Mormons disguised as Indians. Someone should get up in the Senate and call him
to account for these things, and ask him in consideration of these
facts, why he is so deeply outraged by the orders of General Chaffee,
a gallant soldier and gentleman, a humane man, and one, who in my
opinion, has done nothing in the Philippines but what was perfectly
justified, and will in time be considered to have been humane.
The two Senators from Colorado have taken it upon themselves to
denounce in bitter terms what they call unheard of acts and cruelties
of our army. I would point them to a case in their own state, which
was more severe than any act in the Philippines has been. A regiment of Colorado cavalry under Col. J. M. Chivington, a minister by
profession, attacked and destroyed a band of Indians encamped on the
Big Sandy, near Camp Lyon, who claimed to be under the protection
of the officers at Fort Lyon. This was a massacre of men, women and
children of a friendly band of Indians, and was one of the main causes
of bringing into arms against the United States every tribe of Indians
south of the Yellowstone. When an investigiton of this affair was 
ordered the State of Colorado almost unanimously protested against
it, upholding the act, and quoted that old saying: "There is no good
Indian except a dead one." Think of our wars with the Indians in
which whole bands were wiped out, even the women and children
being destroyed; think of the wars in which we employed Indians
against Indians; they not only killed but scalped; I do not know of a
single treaty ever made with the Indians that the United States has




ADDRESS TO NEW YORK COMMANDERY


69


not violated, and when an Indian had the hardihood to object the
Government started in to wipe him out. This has been the treatment
of the Indians from the Atlantic to the Pacific, until at the present
time there is not a wild Indian living in the entire country, yet 1 cannot
remember that this press has ever been aroused; it was too near home.
Take the case of Major Glenn, who is about to be courtmartialed
for giving the water cure to the Presidente in one of the Provinces in
Luzon, as the testimony goes to show. This Presidente had been
appointed to office by our government, had taken the oath of allegiance,
and was there to represent us. While he was occupying this position,
it was discovered that he was the captain of an insurgent company,
giving active assistance to the enemy, and he was, therefore a traitor
and a spy and under the laws of war deserved to be shot, but instead
they proposed to courtmartial Glenn for simply giving him the water
cure, and this, in my opinion, is a great wrong.
Order Ioo, which is often quoted, was issued in the Civil War to
govern officers. It was prepared by Professor Lieber, and was considered and adopted, I believe, by a board of officers; anyhow, it was
very carefully drawn. I am told it has been considered and used by
nearly all the nations. It gives an officer great latitude, and where an
officer meets a savage enemy or one that is violating the laws of war,
those laws are suspended and it virtually is left to his own judgment
as to how far he should go in inflicting punishment, and under this
order there is no doubt both Smith and Glenn were protected in their
actions. It may seem harsh, but you are all aware how many harsh
orders were given in the Civil War for the purpose of forcing the
enemy to comply, and how often those orders and threats accomplished
the purpose without any other act. When the colored troops were
first organized on several occasions Confederate officers sent in demands
for them to surrender, coupled with the threat that if they refused the
place would be taken and no quarter granted. I know of one instance
where an officer believed this threat and surrendered a regiment of
colored infantry for the purpose of having them protected. Then
there is the case of Fort Pillow; whether or not Forest gave the order
it is claimed he gave, I do not know, but the fact that no quarter was
shown there has been amply verified.
With the past week there has been appointed a committee of distinguished citizens, most of whom are well-known opponents of our
Government in its policies and acts during the Spanish War. They
propose to hunt up and lay before Congress all cases of cruelty on the
part of our army, with the avowed purpose of sustaining the national
honor. I must say this is the first time I ever heard of national honor
being sustained by such methods. Have you, or anyone else, ever




70


ADDRESS TO NEW YORK COMMANDERY


heard a single word of protest from these people or anyone connected
with them against the revolting cruelties of the enemy in the Phillippines? They evidently have no desire to learn about these things, but
want some excuse for attacking our army, hoping thereby to bring
dishonor upon our country before the world. The national honor
never has, never can, and never will be protected by such methods.
It is upheld and maintained today, as it always has been, by the
patriotism of our people as represented by our army in the Civil War,
in Cuba, the Philippines and China.
These attacks upon the army are for a double purpose, and you
should not forget it. Every time they make this great "hub-bub"
about cruelties they are hitting back to those that were in the Civil
War. There is an element in this country that already has no use for
the soldier of the Civil War. They are continually crying about the
pension he is getting, that he is favored in the government services,
etc., etc. They do not dare attack him openly, as yet, but do it
covertly. There is no officer listening to me who did not see cruelties
in the Civil War. Many of you have had to order them, but you know
you were never brought to account for them when they were acts of
necessity. We were always careful that no cruelties were committed
by enlisted men, but whatever was done was by the order of an officer.
It was the practice of the War Department never to interfere in these
matters, leaving them to the officer who was in charge of the forces in
the field. None of these things occurred without his knowledge; he
was on the spot and knew the necessity for them, and if he did nut
take action it was considered that none was necessary, and they were
seldom called to account for it afterwards, but in the Philippines they
are bringing officers to account simply because of the outcry of people
who care nothing for the merits of the case, except to make capital
against out country's policy in maintaining itself in the Philippines.
In view of all the facts, I must doubt the sincerity of those who are
seeking to bring discredit upon our little army, the marvellous
efficiency of which has won the admiration of the world. Under the
regulations, it is impossible for the army to defend itself and make
answer to these attacks, except through their own officers, and their
reports do. not reach the public, for the press seems to use only that
which reflects upon the army, and omits that which is in its favor. It
is the duty of every companion here, as well as of every good citizen,
to enter his protest against these unjust attacks. The right side is
beginning to get a hearing, and when the facts and causes for the
action of the army are generally known, it will be found that our army
is as humane and well-behaved a body of troops as ever went into a
foreign country, and we must all assist in seeing that it receives justice.




THE LAST YEAR'S WORK, AND JOINING OF TRACKS OF THE UNION
PACIFIC AND CENTRAL PACIFIC RAILWAYS.
Probably no event since the Civil War has been of such great
moment to this country, and the future development of the West, as
the joining of the tracks of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific
Railways on May io, I869, and probably no State in the union has
received as much benefit from that act as the State of Nebraska.
When you take into consideration all the circumstances attending
the building of these two roads, the difficulty of obtaining material,
the fact that the Union Pacific was built almost its entire length
under a picket line of the army, with the Indians hostile, with capital
for such great enterprises limited, and that the Union Pacific laid
in twelve months 550 miles of track, and the Central Pacific over
400 miles, both companies laying their track from one end, one
transporting its supplies from Omaha and the other from San
Francisco, crowding into one year the work which to be economically done should have taken three years, the magnitude of the
undertaking will be realized. It was a feat, so far as I know, never
before or since equalled, in this nation or in the world.
The original intention of the law of i862 and 1864 was that the
Union Pacific should in ten years build its line to the California State
line. At that time the Central Pacific was simply a local company.
In the year i865 the law was changed to allow the Central Pacific to
build East until it met the tracks of the Union Pacific building
West. Up to the fall of 1867 the Union Pacific building was limited
to the amount of material that could be brought up the Missouri
River from St. Louis and St. Joseph in about three months of water
transportation, and the season only gave us eight months to utilize
this material.
In making my plans for each year I always communicated with
General Sherman, who was in command of the military division
which covered the country through which we were building, in order
that he might arrange his forces so as to protect my engineering
parties, graders, track-layers, etc., from attack by Indians. In the
spring of 1867 I wrote to him, and gave my plans for the building
of 286 miles, and reaching the Laramie Plains in eight working
months, and as in those times we did not work in winter, he was so
astonished that he sent me the following letter:




72


THE LAST YEAR'S WORK


"ST. Louis, January i8th, I867.
I have just read with intense interest your letter of the 14th, and
though you wanted it kept to myself, I believe you will sanction my
sending it to Gen. Grant for his individual 'perusal, to be returned
to me.
It is almost a miracle to grasp your proposition to finish to Fort
Sanders this year, but you have done so much that I mistrust my own
judgment and accept yours.
I regard this road of yours as the solution of the Indian affairs, and
of the Mormon question, and therefore give you all I possibly can,
but the demand for soldiers everywhere, and the slowness of enlistment, especially among the Blacks, limits our ability to respond.
Naturally each officer exaggerates his own troubles, and appeals for
men; thus Ord is greatly exercised lest the Blacks and Whites
commence a War of Race, and would have four or five regiments
scattered over the whole State of Arkansas to prevent local troubles.
I want to punish and subdue the Indians, who are the enemies of our
race and progress, but even in that, it is well sometimes to proceed
with due deliberation.  I now have General Terry on the Upper
Missouri, General Auger with you, and General Hancock just below,
all young enterprising men, fit for counsel or the field.  I will
endeavor to arrange so that hereafter all shall act on common principles and with a common purpose, and the first step, of course, is to
arrange for the accumulation of the necessary men and material at
the right points, for which your Railroad is the very thing.
Auger will be with you before this, and you will find him prepared
to second you to the utmost of his power. I want him to study his
problem and call on Grant through me, for the least force that is
adequate, for we must respect the demand from other quarters. Of
course, I am disposed to find fault that our soldiers are now tied up in
the Southern States, but in the light they are now regarded it would
be impolitic for me to say so publicly. All I can do is to keep General
Grant well informed, so that he may distribute his army to the best
advantage for the whole country.
As to supplies, General Auger will be, and is, at liberty to control 
this question according to the state of facts. The staff officers at
Omaha are supplied with funds, and are on the spot, authorized to
buy or call for supplies from Chicago or St. Louis. Though West
Iowa might supply your markets abundantly, yet if suddenly called
on for millions of pounds of flour, sugar, coffee and bacon, they
would jump the price, but you know we now have Quartermasters
and Commissaries absolutely disinterested, and qualified to arrange
this matter.




THE LAST YEAR'S WORK


73


I will surely be up this year many times, and will go over every rail
more than once. I don't want to go to Utah until your road approaches
Bridger, which cannot be this year; and I don't want Congress to
bother itself about Mormon affairs till then-and the Gentiles would
do well to hold their tongues and pens until it becomes feasable to act in case of laws or threats.  It is nonsense now for us to
send a large force there, and besides it is impossible, and would be to
the interest of the Mormons, by the prices they would exact of us
for meat and bread.
Don't fail to keep in touch with Auger, Myers, etc., who can be of
service to you in many ways "
How necessary the aid of the army was, and how much depended
upon its protection, is best made clear by giving'one of my letters on
that subject to General Sherman. It is as follows.
"COUNCIL BLUFFS, May o2th, i867.
My dear GeneralI am beginning to have serious doubts as to Gen. Auger's ability to
make a campaign into Powder River, and at the same time give
ample protection to the railroad, the mail route and the telegraph.
His forces are too limited to do all well, while they are sufficient to
do one of them efficiently.
In the last two weeks the Indians have developed their game same
as they did in the spring of '65.
ist. They struck us this side of Sedgwick and cleaned out two
of our sub-contractors of everything they had; and scared the workmen out of their boots, so they abandoned the work and we cannot
get them back.
2nd. They struck one of my engineering parties on Lodge Pole
and took one pair of mules, and notified them to leave, pulling up
all our stakes, etc.
3rd. They attacked our tie men in the Black Hills and drove
them off the Cheyenne, burning up their traps, etc., and also cleaned
out one small party on Laramie Plains.
4th. They attacked Mr. Brown's engineering party, on the i4th,
at Rock Creek, killing one of his men, Mr. Stephen Clark of New
York, taking his stock; and also killed one of the escort, and took
part of their stock. While pitching into us, they burned the stage
station called Fairview, between Morgan and Sedgwick, also burned
stage station at Cooper Creek, and Rock Creek, West of Saunders,
taking stock.




74


THE LAST YEAR'S WORK


The mail will stop unless Auger will protect the stations. You
know men will not run those routes with scalping Indians along
them, unless troops are there to protect them. And we cannot hold
our men to our work unless we have troops, and Auger cannot furnish
them even after the road is built. Our station men will not stay at
the tanks and stations, 20 miles apart, unprotected.
The great difficulty is that Auger has only two companies of cavalry
to scout the whole line, and seven or eight companies of infantry to
protect 300 miles of opened work. My engineering parties are driven
into Sanders, and Auger says it is now impossible to increase their
escort, and they are working in the worst Indian country you have
got. You must take into consideration the line over Laramie Plains.
It is the most exposed of all, and where we have got to operate
extensively this season. Would it not be best to garrison the posts
of Laramie, Casper, Reno, Phil Kearney and C. F. Smith strongly,
so that 200 to 400 men can at any time be massed to go after any bands
and place them all under an active officer, and let him take care of
the Indians up there? No white man, or train, except Government,
will travel that route this year, therefore to take care of the posts
we have there, and to hold the Indians up there is all that is required.
Let Auger take the rest of his forces and operate along the line from
North Platte west.  He will then have force enough to give confidence to the workmen, the stage and the emigrants.
I submit this for you to consider. When we went into the Powder
River country in '65, we took more mounted troops to hold open
the stage route alone than Gen. Auger has got in his department,
and he has got just as big'a job o.n his hands now as we had then,
and larger, because the Indians have more confidence.
If Chas. Bent, or George, is with the Southern Cheyennes, they
will play h-1 with our completed road. We are now at Alkali, 40
miles west of North Platte, and I tremble every day for fear of a
stampede. Have smothered all of the recent attacks and kept them
out of the press. Auger and myself only know it, but should our
men get at the real truth they will stampede. State agents, telegraph
men, emigrants, tie contractors, and R. R. men of all description out
there are pressing for protection, and while Auger feels the importance of giving it, how can he if he moves all his mounted men 300
miles north? If the Indians south had kept quiet, I should have
felt easier, but between two fires, with the temptation we are holding
out to them in the vast amount of stock, provisions, etc., on the line,
with such temporary means as we have to protect ourselves, I know
they will give us grief. I know from a long talk with Gen. Auger
that he does not feel competent to protect these routes and make the




THE LAST YEAR'S WORK


75


campaign. And knowing this, I have written you freely. I say
nothing to anyone else, because I am determined to go through to
Crow Creek if we have to abandon everything else, no matter what
the Indians do. I am going up on our road. Unfortunately, I am
sick; have been for two weeks confined to the house, but my presence up there will give confidence to a portion of our men. If we
can hold our men to it, we will be at Sedgwick in June.
If Auger had another regiment of cavalry, that alone would put
him on his feet. I have very strong convictions that Auger should
put his energies on the great route, while Hancock- uses his movable
force to follow and fight the Cheyennes and Sioux on the Platte and
Smoky Hills. The Arapahoes will soon be heard from. They are
working towards Laramie Plains, and when they get to work We
will have fun. I do not see how we are to be protected from Sedgwick to Bridgers Pass with less than a regiment of cavalry. I am
looking every day to have them burn our ties distributed up Pole
Creek. We have been placing them on every j mile, I300 in a place,
and if disposed, they could do us irreparable damage."
During I867 it was discovered that the Central Pacific, taking
advantage of the change in the law, proposed to bend every effort
to reach Salt Lake before the Union Pacific reached that point with
its track. The completion of the Northwestern Railway to Council
Bluffs, November 7, i867, gave us an all rail communication East,
which enabled us to chaage our whole plans, and in the winter of
1867-68 I went to New York, where the necessity of reaching Salt
Lake that year (i868) was thoroughly discussed, and I was instructed
to lay the plans for the next year's work to build as far west as
possible, and on my return to Omaha I called around me my staff,
and we made our plans with a view of reaching Ogden, on Salt Lake,
in the year x868, 502 miles west of the end of the track, and Humboldt Wells, 2I6 miles west of Ogden, during the spring of i869.
While the preliminary lines for the road had been run, and the
country selected through which the road should be built, no final
location had been made west of Ft. Sanders, now Laramie City, so
that the entire line had to be located and built. We distributed the
engineering parties during the winter, in order that they could be
on the ground as soon as spring opened. I remember that the parties
which went into Utah had to cross the Wasatch Mountains on
sledges, the snow being over the top of the telegraph poles. The
track in 1867 had been carried over the Black Hills, reaching the
timber country, and during that winter we utilized all the force we
could get to get out ties and run them down mountain streams and
take them out at our crossings. This relieved us of the great problem




76


THE LAST YEAR'S WORK


of transporting ties from the Missouri River for the line west of the
Black Hills, an average distance of 800 miles. All the material and
supplies of all kinds, not only the material for building the road,
but for all the forces connected with its construction, and everybody
then living in that country, had to be transported from the Missouri
River, and it took about forty cars a day to supply the front. The
country afforded us nothing except the roadbed and ties after we
reached the Black Hills.
About April rst the spring opened so that we commenced our
grading at Laramie, and the laying of our track began on the Black
Hills. Our men worked from daylight to dark, and I do not know
of a single day's loss of time from the time we commenced until we 
ended. There was a general determination, not only among those
in charge, but all of the employees, to do their utmost, and there
was an esprit de corps that has not been seen since, and I think
never existed before except in an army. In fact, the force was a well
trained army, most of the heads of it having been trained officers and
soldiers, and in any emergency they could be called into service and
lined up the same as they were in the war. We extended the grading
force first to Green River, then to Ogden, on Salt Lake, then to
Humboldt Wells, where our grading was finally stopped.  Winter
overtook us at the eastern foot of the Wasatch Mountain range, and
the grading over that range was completed in the winter, the earth
being blasted the same as the rock.  A good deal of the track over
that range of mountains was laid on a bank that was covered with ice
and snow, and one of General Casement's track laying trains slid off
the ice bodily, track and all, into the ditch. We reached Ogden after
about nine months work, and then bent all our energies for the Humboldt Wells.
In the meantime, the Central Pacific, which had a much less distance
to cover to reach Ogden from the west than we had from the east,
was coming forward each day with great rapidity. Their forces were
almost entirely Chinese, while our force was made up mostly from
citizens of our own country. The Central Pacific, to our astonishment
filed its map claiming to build as far east as the head of Echo, some
distance east of Ogden. As soon as their track reached Humboldt
Wells I called off our graders on that section and concentrated them
between Ogden and Promontory, with a view of meeting the Central
Pacific as far west of Ogden as possible, and the work accomplished
by both companies I think has never been equalled. The amount of
track that was laid down by Casement Brothers averaged about 2
miles per day, and their best day's work was over 8 mles. We worked
seven days in the week, and every hour of the day that light gave us. The




THE LAST YEAR'S WORK


77


strain became greater as the distance between the companies narrowed,
and we were not only pressed forward by our own companies, but by
the whole United States, who watched our progress from day to day
with more interest than those upon the ground. About the first of
May we made an agreement with the Central Pacific to join our tracks
at Promontory, and, in accordance with that agreement, on the ioth
day of May the tracks were then and there joined with simple but
impressive ceremonies. There were but few people from the East
present on that day, and a train or two only from California, but the
hundreds of workmen at the end of the track on each side crowded
around, and saw the driving of the last spike. The engineers run their
engines up until they touched, each breaking a bottle of champagne
on the opposite engine, as a recognition of the completion of the work
and its final launching upon the world.
I did not forget to communicate with my old commander, General
Sherman, who had taken such great interest in the entire work.
Generals Grant and Sherman had rendered us every assistance possible, giving us all the protection the limited force at their command
would allow, without which it would have been impossible for us to
have completed the work in four years for which the Government
considered ten necessary, and fixed that time in the law.  In answer
to my dispatch General Sherman sent the following:
"WASHINGTON, May iI, 1869.
General G. M. DODGE:
In common with millions, I sat yesterday and heard the
mystic taps of the telegraphic battery announce the nailing of the
last spike in the great Pacific road. Indeed, am I its friend? Yea.
Yet, am I a part of it, for as early as I854 I was Vice-President of the
effort begun in San Francisco under the contract of Robinson, Seymour & Company. As soon as General Thomas makes certain preliminary inspections in his new command on the Pacific, I will go out
and, I need not say, will have different facilities from that of 1846,
when the only way to California was by sail around Cape Horn, taking
our ships I96 days. All honor to you, to Durant, to Jack and Dan
Casement, to Reed, and the thousands of brave fellows who have
wrought out this glorious problem, spite of changes, storms, and even
doubts of the incredulous, and all the obstacles you have now happily
surmounted.


W. T. SHERMAN, General."




78                 THE LAST YEAR'S WORK
The Central Pacific, having completed its work over the Sierra
Nevada range in 1867, its line from there East was by the Humboldt
Valley and skirting Salt lake on the north, and its work this year, was
therefore, comparatively light, but it labored under the great difficulty
that all of its material and equipment had to be carried from New
York or Pennsylvania, or a foreign country, around the Horn and
landed in San Francisco before it could be used from there East. This
made it necessary for it to make its plans and provide its material one
or two years before its use. This they did, and executed them with
great ability and wonderful celerity. The Union Pacific had no doubt
but that it could build to meet the Central Pacific at Humboldt, but
had to use all its strength to stop it before it reached Salt Lake, as it
had graded its line to Ogden, and we met its track at Promontory.
From the first day of April, I868 until May Io, I869, only thirteen
months, the Union Pacific built and laid track over 555 miles of road,
and graded its line to Humboldt Wells, making a total distance
covered by its force of 726 miles of line, and transported all its material
and supplies from the Missouri River. The ties for the work west of
Promontory had to be hauled by team twenty-five or fifty miles. There
were engaged upon the work about ten thousand men and ten thousand
animals, a portion of these being used in trains for supplying the
forces working beyond the end of track, all of which had to be supplied.
In the grading of the line the Mormons were a great factor, as
Brigham Young entered into the question of building the road with
great earnestness and ability, and commanded all the people under
him to turn out and take contracts, and aid in every way possible.
The Union Pacific in this time built its line over its greatest physical
obstacles. It crossed two ranges of mountains and the divide of the
continent, and over one of the ranges, the Wasatch, the work was the
heaviest on the entire line. How well it performed its work, located
and built its road, is shown by the following extract from the report
of the distinguished board of engineers sent out to examine and report
on behalf of the Government.
"Taken as a whole the Union Pacific Railroad has been well constructed. The general route for the line is exceedingly well selected,
crossing the Rocky Mountain ranges at some of the most favorable 
passes on the continent, and possessing capabilities for easy grades
and favorable alignments unsurpassed by any other railway line on
similarly elevated grounds. The energy and perseverance with which
the work has been urged forward and the rapidity with which it has
been executed, are without parallel in history. In the grandeur and
magnitude of the undertaking it has never been equalled, and no other
line compares with this in the arid and barren character of the country




THE LAST YEAR'S WORK                    79
it traverses, giving rise to unusual inconveniences and difficulties, and
imposing the necessity of obtaining almost every requisite of material,
of labor and of supplies for its construction, from the extreme initial
point."
We are,
Very respectfully, your obedient servants,
G. K. WARREN, Brevet Major General, U. S. A.
J. BLICKENSDERFER, Jr., Civil Engineer.
JAMES BARNES, Civil Engineer.
Special Commissii ners Union Pacific Railroad.
HON. O. H. BROWNING,
Secretary of the Interior.




GEN. GRENVILLE M. DODGE
RECALLS BEGINNING OF OMAHA AND NEBRASKA.
General Grenville M. Dodge of Council Bluffs, gentleman, pioneer,
Indian fighter and railway man, to whom Nebraska and the west owe
a debt that can never be fully paid, was a guest of a notable luncheon
at the Omaha club last Monday afternoon. The informal reception
was planned by General Chas. A. Manderson, Captain H. E. Palmer,
Dr. George L. Miller, J. Sterling Morton and others.
Addresses on that occasion were necessarily interesting, and
particularly the speech of General Dodge was a most important
document on the history of the west, so intimately connected with his
own.  Dr. Miller was a gracious master of ceremonies.  General
Dodge said:
GENERAL DODGE REMINISCENT.
When a voice called me up on the telephone and informed me that
this club desired to give me a luncheon at which I could meet some
of my old friends, I was surprised and rather objected, but the voice
took me back to early days, and I thought if those who were with me
then carried their friehdship so long to desire to see me, it was a great
honor and satisfaction to me, and I accepted with great pleasure.
Naturally when I meet you here under such circumstances my mind
carries me back to the early '50s. when there was no Omaha and no
Nebraska. The first time I crossed the Missouri river, with a small
engineering party, I was greeted'on this side by Indians.  No white
man lived here and no one in my party probably had ever seen an
Indian before. My duties as chief of the party were to look up the
country ahead, and the young boy who ran the party is a citizen today
of Omaha. He was with me many years, an able, conscientious, hard
working, faithful man, to whom I owe much, for he faithfully filled all
his positions. He is well-known in this city, and I am glad to say has.
been honored by it, I speak of Mr. J. E. House.
I rode out to the Elkhorn river alone leaving House to follow. On
arriving at the Elkhorn I was tired, unsaddled to give my horse a.




GEN. GRENVILLE M. DODGE


8i


chance to graze, and lay down to take a nap, I was aroused by the
neighing of my horse, and looking across the valley saw a Pawnee
Indian taking him as fast as he could force him along towards the
river. Naturally Fwas frightened and hardly knew what to do, but
instinct told me I must have my horse, and grabbing my rifle I started
out towards the Indian, hollowing at the top of my voice.  The pony
was evidently as frightened at the Indian as I was, and was stubborn
in his movements, and the Indian finally dropped him and fled across
the Elkhorn.
Ten or twelve years afterwards, when I was in command of this
department, and was ordered to open the different mail and stage
lines across the continent, which had been closed for some months by
the Indians, I raised a battalion of Pawnees to aid me as scouts and
placed in command of them Major North, a very valuable officer, and
they were of great service to me. The Indian who attempted to steal
my horse was one of the battalion, and stated to Major North that I
made so much noise that I scared the pony and himself so that he got
away from me as fast as possible and never stopped running until he
reached the Pawnee village across the Platte.
On my return to the party I found it encamped on the emigrant
road leading from Florence to the Elkhorn at the crossing of the Big
Pappillion. During the day the Indians had been helping themselves
and the party was in a far from happy state of mind, in fact the
Indians had actual possession of the camp, and you can see my
introduction to Nebraska was anything but a satisfactory one.
EARLY HISTORY LIKE FICTION.
Now, if I should try to portray to you or any one the experiences,
che trials and the sufferings of the picket line of settlement and
explorations in those days, you would declare it more fiction than fact
Early friendships made under such circumstances are calculated to
last, and it is one of the great gratifications of my life that the ties
that bound us together never have been sundered. I cannot tell you
anything of Omaha to-day, but probably no one has a better
knowledge of the circumstances and facts that founded Omaha as a
future great city. If you knew them all, you could see upon what
slender threads at times its existence depended. Omaha as a city was
determined long before it was settled. It came from the settlement
of the location on tne Missouri river of the surveys made under the
direction of Henry Farnam and William Cheffield far in advance of
any settlement of this territory. It fell to my lot, under the direction
of that distinguished engineer and more distinguished citizen, Peter
A. Dey, to make the first survey across the state of-Iowa and to




82


GEN. GRENVILLE M. DODGE.


determine where in all probability a line would end upon the Missouri
river in this parallel of latitude and where any railroad being built
west would leave this river. None of you know the interests involved
and the matters raised in determining that point.  My survey
demonstrated that the true engineering and commercial line crossing
Iowa should come down the Mosquito and end at Council Bluffs, and
going west the line should cross to the Platte valley and up that to
the mountains, and so on west. The financial interest's in Iowa were
favorable to a line running down the Pigeon and crossing to Florence;
another diversion was by Bellevue, another south of the Platte, and a
fourth crossing at the mouth of the Boyer, and all these lines I
examined. 
Before my surveys had been finally determined the parties interested had planted their stakes at Florence and announced that as
the crossing place of the Missouri river. My reports were sustained
by Mr. Dey, and finally the decision made was reversed and the crossing determined to be opposite this place. This being determined, I
was authorized to commence work at Council Bluffs, provided I could
obtain local aid, and Pottawattamie county gave me $300,000 in bonds
and Mr. Farnum furnished the funds for doing the grading and what
work was done up to the time that all work in the state was stopped
on account of the panic. There is no doubt that the final determination of what is now known as the Rock Island railway crossing the
Missouri river, was what first drew the attention of people to Omaha
and that brought to the Bluffs every railroad survey at that time being
made across the state, and I think there are men at this table who will
say to you that that was the real first beginning of Omaha.
CHAT WITH LINCOLN IN THE BLUFFS.
In 1858, if I recollect rightly, on my way from reconnaissances west
with my party, which had been out the entire summer, I camped my
party in Council Bluffs and went to the Pacific House. At that time
Abraham Lincoln was visiting the Bluffs. He heard of my return
from my surveys and sought me out at the Pacific House, and on the
porch of that hotel he sat with me for two hours or more and drew
out of me all the facts I had obtained in my surveys and naturally my
opinion as to the route for a railroad west and as to the feasibility of
building it. I thought no more of this at the time than that possibly
I had been giving away secrets that belonged to my employers in this
work.
In 1862 whilst in command of the District of Cornith, Mississippi, I
receive a dispatch from General Grant to proceed to Washington and
report to the president.  No explanation coming with the dispatch.




GEN. GRENVILLE M. DODGE


83


I was a little alarmed, for they had come to me at Corinth a great
many negroes and I had placed them in what was known as a contraband camp and had placed over them certain soldiers as guards. This
caused me a good deal of annoyance and trouble. The white soldiers
did not like the duty and took every opportunity to annoy the
negroes, even in some cases going as far as to shoot them. The
superintendent of the camp was Chaplain Alexander of an Ohio
regiment, a very able and excellent man, and he suggested one day to
me that he believed that negroes would be better to guard the
contraband camp than white soldiers. I authorized him to raised one
or two companies and I armed them, solely for the purpose of guarding these negroes  I had no authority to do this and I did not at the
time appreciate the importance that was to be given to it. There
were many protests against this, and in the command there was
considerable opposition to it, and I thought that my call to Washington
was possibly to be called to account for this act.
When I reached Washington and reported to the president I soon
ascertained that I was there for a consultation in regard to the eastern
terminus of the Union Pacific railway. He had remembered his conversation with me on the Pacific House porch, and under the law it
had been made his duty to determine the eastern terminus of the
Union Pacific road, and those of you who remember that time know
what pressure was brought to bear on the president to name different
points far north and far south of this. After a long conversation with
me, obtaining my views fully and the reasons for them, the president
finally determined to make it, as you all know, on the Western border
of Iowa, opposite this city. That decision in my opinion, settled
beyond all question the future of your city and your state
I wish to say here that while my surveys and my conclusions may
have been of great benefit to you, still they were made because there
was no question, from an engineering point of view, where the line
crossing Iowa and going west from this river, should cross the
Missouri river, and it was also my conclusion that it was the commercial line. The Lord had so constructed the country that any engineer
who failed to take advantage of the great open road from here west to
Salt Lake would not have been fit to belong to the profession; 6oo
miles of it up a single valley without a grade to exceed fifteen feet;
the natural pass over the Rocky mountains, the lowest in all the range,
and the divide of the continent, instead of being a mountain summit,
has a basin 500 feet below the general level. It was a gratification to
me at the time to have the support of all the people in the vicinity of
this country in my views. There is no telling how much influence it
had and weight it carried, andjwithout being invidious or partial, I




84


GEN. GRENVILLE M. DODGE


really think that Omaha and Nebraska today owe more to my old
friend and always faithful comrade and supporter. Dr. George L.
Miller, for the success of these efforts, than any other man. I could
show you many of the benefits he brought to you, even more than he
knows himself, and he was the most unselfish and determined continuous fighter for his city and state that I ever knew, and I take pleasure
here in his own home in paying my tribute to him.
UNION PACIFIC'S WORK.
Now, gentlemen, this city and state for their great prosperity, after
the fact, are mostly indebted to the Union Pacific railway. It blazed
the way across the continent. They took all the chances and solved
the problem of the building of a railroad to the Pacific, not only from
an engineering point of view, but also from a commercial one, and it
was, therefore, easy after that for all roads to follow.  It was at that
time a very great problem if a road built could ever earn its interest.
After its completion the board of directors of the company requested
me to make an estimate of the gross earnings per mile for the next
ten years. They desired an estimate from which they could prove to
the people that it would be able to pay the interest upon the first.
mortgage bonds, and after calling to my aid all the people who had
knowledge of the capabilities of the country west of the Missouri
river, as well as those of China and Japan, and, in fact, of all Asia, the
best I could do was to report to them gross earnings within ten years.
of $5,000 per mile, and if I remember rightly, in less than five years
the road earned $ro,ooo per mile.  So you see how little those who
had the best knowledge of this country appreciated what its develop —
ment would bring about.
The earnings of the Union Pacific made it safe for any other road
to enter the territory, and to the Farnams, the Ames, the Dillons,
Goulds, Scott, Huntington and Stamford in an early day, and to,
Perkins, Miller, Cable, Hewitt and many others of a later day, this
country should give great honor and no abuse.  It has been the
fashion in our day to hold up to the coming generation the names of
Astor, Vanderbilt and the noted Knickerbockers as. the great men,.
commercially, for them to follow. These men invested their money
in the east, where it was safe and sure of dividends, but the men who
developed the country and brought in their millions without one cent
in return, they are the ones you and all others are indebted to for
their foresight, their risking everything and finally building up a
great empire west of the lakes. Most of those of the earlier day have
passed away, and this country is now awakening to the credit due'
them, which I hope will sometime be paid them.




GEN. GRENVILLE M. DODGE


PRESENT RAILWAY COMBINATION.
When you come down to the present time, I admit that I am not up
to the times. I never dreamed that the Union Pacific railroad would
control the Southern Pacific. My fear was always that the ownership
would be in the Southern Pacific. You must not sit still and pass by
what there is for you here in this great control. Your business men
must get near to the throne, and use' your energies like Miller and
Kennedy, and Saunders and Millard and many others did in an earlier
day to take the benefits of these new developments. Nor need you
be afraid of the great combinations just completed in the northwest.
It will not raise the rates of freight one mill nor of passengers one
cent. The men at the head of that gigantic enterprise are broadminded. They have thought and built well, and they will bring
stability, development and great wealth, that cannot but be of great
benefit to you. You must not forget one of the great advantages of
such combinations to a new country. They have behind them such
an immense capital that when you go to them with any project that
has merit in it, for the development of your country, they are able to
adopt it and carry it out, whilst in an earlier day projects were often
presented to those who controlled the internal improvements of this
country which they saw the merits of and were anxious to take hold
of, but it was impossible for them to obtain the capital at those times
to do it. Nor must you forget what this combination means. The
country west of here has hardly been scratched and with the brains
and capital of the country pushing forward its developement with
steam and electricity and air, what one here can prophesy what fifty
years will develop between here and the Pacific ocean?
I know there is some nervousness among people about these great
combinations, but those that are not upon a solid basis will topple over
from their overweight, and the others will continue and grow and
bring stability to all kinds of business. The commercial man wants
to'know that he can safely lay down plans for six months or a year,
and under such direction he can safely do it, and it is a mistake to
attack them before you are hurt.  You will find greater benefits coming to your country by supporting and aiding them rather than by
abuse and opposition.
New blood must take the place of old, and I bid you godspeed in
your efforts. And now, my friends, in our old age the great satisfaction to all of you and to me is to know that our early efforts are both
recognized and appreciated; that the old friendships acquired in trials
and tribulations are still fresh and true, and to my old friends and all
of you I wish I knew how to express to you what is in my heart, but I
cannot. I can only say, I thank you with all my heart.




RESOLUTIONS PRESENTED TO


MAJOR GENERAL GRENVILLE M. DODGE,
by Members of his Staff at Inauguration of Grant's Tomb.
Whereas, on the 27th day of April, I897, the Tomb of General
Ulysses S. Grant was completed and formally transferred to the City
of New York, his remains having first been reverently and appropriately enshrined within; and
Whereas, the people of the country, as well as of the City and State,
adopted that event for an outpouring of patriotic veneration, to be
displayed by participation of their President and Cabinet, their
Governors, chief magistrates, veterans-by tens of thousands-and
representative bodies of the army and navy, with entire divisions of
the militia of adjacent states, and lesser bodies from' a distance, uniting with the multitude at home, in the ceremonial transfer; and
Whereas, the prospective assemblage of a concourse so honorable
and so vast, upon so august an occasion, demanded for its management
the prescient care and supervision of a Marshall who should be himself identified with that which was commemorated, with personal
history adequate to the dignity of the review, and capacity insuring a
well ordered progress; and
Whereas, Major General Grenville M. Dodge was lately a corps
commander in the Army of the Tennessee, afterwards Chief of
Location and Construction of the Union Pacific Railroad, and is now
Commander in New York of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion,
and President of the Society of the Army of the Tennessee, and
Whereas, General Dodge was not only during the late war, was a
much prized comrade and associate of General Grant, but to the end
of his life enjoyed the same relation to that great commander, while
his civil achievements meantime have shown that his mastery of men
continues unimpaired; and
Whereas, the result of his selection as Grand Marshall, has been
that every incident of the great event -befitted the occasion, that it
transpired without mistake or accident, and with features that have




MAJOR GENERAL GRENVILLE M. DODGE


87


helped to glorify and strengthen loyalty and patriotic confidence; and
Whereas, it was our privilege as members of his staff and Aides de
Camp, to share with him the task and the achievement; and to enjoy
and appreciate that fellowship and service; in commemoration of
which we have caused his portrait to be painted, in order that it might
be presented to him, to remind him of our regard, and to perpetuate
his likeness;
Therefore, be it resolved, that we, the undersigned, members of the
staff and Aides de Camp to Major General Grenville M. Dodge, Grand
Marshall and Master of Ceremonies at the formal transfer to the City
of New York, on the 27th day of April, i897, of the Tomb in which
are enshrined the remains of General Ulysses S. Grant, do hereby
present to him the accompanying portrait of himself, and beg that he
will except it with this expression of our esteem.
COMMITTEE.
Frank C. Loveland, Chairman,    Richard E. Cochran, Treasurer,
A. Noel Blakeman,                Charles N. Swift,
Alphonso H. Alker,               William Hemstreet,
Edward H. Ripley,                Francis M. Gibson.
Francis R Appleton, Alva B. Adams, James Allen, E. E. Alcott, Daniel Butterfield, George De F. Braton, Frederick Brackett, W. Butler
Beck, Robert B. Baker, Abbott Brown, C. G. Bacon, Jr., Nathan
Bickford, Henry Birrell, R. E. Burdick, Ashley W. Cole, Francis J.
Crilly, William F. Cody, John Crane, Elisha K. Camp, P. F. Collier,
C. H. T. Collis, A. M. Clark, John H. Cook, E. H. Conklin, Henry O
Clark, H. C. Corbin, Charles Curie, Jr., William H. Cummings, H. H.
C. Dunwoody, J. L. De Peyster, Ernest A Des Marets, Nicholas W.
Day, John B. Doherty, A. E. Drake, Richard Deeves, Frank S. De
Ronde, John W. Donovan, Stewart Duncan, R. D. Evens, Fitz Hugh
Edwards, Dudley Evans, Charles W. Fuller, F. Farnsworth, John P.
Faure, W. H. Goddard, A. H. Goetting, John Hayes, Colgate Hoyt,
Paul Hargreave, George F. Hinten, F. C. Hollins, C. R. Hickox, Jr.,
Charles F. Homer, De Ruyter Hollins, William E. Horton, Charles E.
Heuberer, E. B. Ives, L. C. Ivory, James Jourdon, John W, Joyce,
John A. Johnston, F. A. Juilliard, Henry P. Kingsbury, Bryan L.
Kennally, Theodore F. Kane, Horatio C. King, John Winthrop Loveland, Edson Lewis, A, W. Lillenthal, Fred Levy, Philip B. Low, J.
Howard Leman, F. H. Lord, Charles Sumner Lester, F. W. Mix, J. W.
Miller, George R. Manchester, C. B. Morris, C. F. Meek, H. W.




88


MAJOR GENERAL GRENVILLE M. DODGE


McVicker, John S. McDonald, J. Van Vechten Olcott, J. C. O'Connor,
F. A. Plummer, John N. Partridge, G. F. Perrenaud, J. Fred Pierson,
H. T. Pierce, James Parker, T. F. Rodenbough, Charles F. Roberts,
George S. Redfield, Oscar L. Richard, Henry C. Rhoades, Edward
Rascovar, William Cary Sanger, 2nd, C. A. Stanton, Nate F Salisbury,
William J. Sewell, Henry L. Swords, Charles H. Sloat, H. T. Stancliff,
Henry C. Swords, F. W. Seagrist, Jr., John H. Stoppani, M. Standish,
W. R. Spooner, A. W. Swalm, J: C. Shotts, W. H. Stratton, George T.
Steinberg, A. F. Schermerhorn, Frederick A. Starring, J. R. Sheffield,
Ivan Tailof, Albert Tilt, C. W. Tilinghast, Aaron Venderbilt, W. E.
Van Wyck, Thomas L. Watson, J. 0. Woodward, A. F. Walker, Louis
Wendell, B. H. Warner, John G. Wintjen, Alfred E. Watson, W. D. H. 
Washington, E. L. Zalinski.
Colonel Loveland and Gentlemen:
I cannot say that your magnificent and appropriate gift is a surprise,
as I have had to be with it and watch its growth from the beginning,
but your generous act when first made known to me astonished me,
as I had not thought after that cold, windy day in April that you
would be anxious to pass it down to history, and while I fully appreciate the high compliment you pay me, I also appreciate that it is to
commemorate a great event that is to live in the history and records
of this city and country.
When the city selected me to organize and command the parade
that was to notify the world of the completion of the Grant Monument, I was certainly surprised, as it was furthest from my thoughts,
but I appreciated most fully the great honor and determined to give
the city no cause to regret their confidence in me. It also gave me
one mote opportunity to honor that great soldier and statesman, who
gave me every promotion in rank and command after I came under
his orders, until he raised me to the highest rank and command in the
army, and at the close of the war had selected me for a high rank in
the Regular Army, which I could not accept, and in civil life after the
war he was, if possible, more generous and complimentary in selecting
me for distinguished positions, which I could only partially accept.
I therefore threw aside my work for two months and devoted my
time to the organization of the parade.  Experience had taught us
how to make it successful, and I immediately called around me
experienced officers of the army, navy, volunteers and prominent
citizens as a working staff, and we sat down to a problem, which in its
logistics was a difficult one. The column in its line of march doubled
upon itself. In its formation and march it cut all the lines of travel




MAJOR GENERAL GRENVILLE M. DODGE


89


that were to take a million. people to the ground, and in passing
around the monument we were in a culdesac that the simplest
obstruction would have been fatal to the success of the parade. This
staff gave their time and labor without any cost to the city, working
from morning until midnight. Very few know the amount of labor it
requires to successfully organize and move the units that compose a
parade of 6o,ooo people gathered from all over the, country, concentrated, marched before two reviewing officers and dispatched to.their homes within twelve hours, making their time throughout the
entire route to the moment, without a hitch, accident or delay.
When we first considered the plan of handling two land and one
naval parade, and bring all to their destination at the appointed
moment, I desired to move the Presidential parade over a different
route from that the main column was to take, and suggested 24th
Street and Eighth Avenue, but our chief, the Mayor, said "No", they
must take in the best part of the city, so I tried it up Broadway, but
found that route would stop our best lines of communication one
hour. I was, therefore, forced to pass it over our main route at the
hour of the assembling of our main column, knowing any hitch would
-be disastrous to the successful concentration and movement of the
main column. I looked for a soldier who could move the President
and diplomats on the moment, and selected General Butterfield, and
his great success is.known to you all. The naval parade was organized
justas ably under the direction of my naval aide, Captain Chester, and
we were fortunate in having in command of that parade Admiral
Gherardi, whose experience made it easy for him to fit the movement
of the naval and marine columns to ours, which was done promptly
and successfully. The Division Commanders of the land parade were
distinguished officers of the army and prominent citizens, all experienced, therefore I knew the column once formed and moved
promptly, would reach its destination on time and in accordance with
orders.
There is no doubt but that your work was appreciated by the city
and all the military and civic organizations composing the columns,
as there has been one unanimous commendation of it. Many applications have come to me since for copies of our orders and methods
of organization, even from foreign countries. No doubt the terrible
day added to our credit, as those who stood for so many hours in the
cold supposed that we suffered as they did.
My first experiences in the war taught me the value of a staff. At
first they were thought to be more of an ornament than for use, and
the general idea was that if an officer could obtain a staff detail he
had a safe and easy place, bat it was not long before it was found that




90


MAJOR GENERAL GRENVILLE M. DODGE


a good staff officer had no rest. He had to, eat and sleep wherever he
could get a chance; that it was easy to shift to his shoulders any fault,
and very hard to give him proper credit and reward, and in the latter
part of the war the staff and staff departments came to the front,
taking their proper place in the service. I was one of the officers who
had the reputation of keeping a staff busy, and one who was always
asking for educated, experienced officers of the staff. In fact, I think
the only personal requests that I made were for the detailing of
officers to my staff who were well known for experience and efficiency.
I was fortunate in having an able staff in all the commands I held, and
as I left one command to go. to another, one of my greatest regrets
was that I had to part with my military family, and it is one of the 
greatest pleasures of my life since the war that the officers who served
with me on my staff, notwithstanding the merciless way in which I
used them, always came to see me and have a place for me in there
lives and hearts, and it is also one of my greatest pleasures whenever
I have the opportunity to give due credit to the work of the staff and
staff departments in the war.
Our success in this parade is due to the efficient work of my staff
and division commanders.  My staff were all experienced in their
duties and carefully selected for their adaptability for the details, and
the military family that handled this parade, although they were
together only two months, formed friendships that will continue
during our lives. I was greatly gratified on the day of the parade to
hear the reports of the chiefs who handled the parade, of the interest
and esprit de corps of the gentlemen who volunteered for that day's
hard work, and I have often been complimented for their efficiency
and appearance, and it is not necessary for me to say to them that I
most fully appreciate their work.
There is no doubt that every staff officer was impressed on the day
of the parade with the efficiency shown by the different city departments in the way they had prepared n atters to make sure our success.
My two months experience with the Mayor and his chiefs of departments caused me to have great respect for the business way in which
they handled their work. This was especially the case with the Police
Department. We all saw with what ability they controlled the crowds
and with what efficiency they responded to all the requests of the staff,
and it was a great satisfaction to me to give such testimony and credit
to their arduous work.
It seems to me the artist has made a remarkable success of your
commission. If the unanimous approval of all who have seen it is to
be taken, he must justly be proud of his work. I, myself, consider it
a very great painting and a great success.




MAJOR GENERAL GRENVILLE M. DODGE


9j


How can I in words extend to you my appreciation of the great
compliment you pay me in presenting me with this commemorative
painting? I shall hold it as a momento of that great event, and shall
endeavor to place it where it can always be seen and have made
known what it represents.
At one time General Sherman was traveling with me over the State
of Ohio, and at every station the people crowded to see him and pay
him honor. He said to me that he evidently did not appreciate the
importance of the work he had done or looked upon it as the people
did, -and that the great love and many kindnesses he had received
since the war were very impressive'to him, and as he grew older he
appreciated them more and more. He said that the enthusiasm and
praise that were given during the war in the bustle and cruelty of
great campaigns and battles did not carry to him the full appreciation
of the feelings of the people. But now, so many years after the war,
the great love that the people seemed to have for those who were
successful in the war, or had accomplished great success seemed to
grow as time passed by, and it was hard for him to give the proper
and heart-felt acknowledgments that such demonstrations required,
and I can appreciate more fully now than I did then the truth of his
sentiments, and I lack more than ever he did the ability and language
to convey to you my thoughts and my feelings. I can only say that I
thank you with all my heart.




REMARKS OF


GEN. G. M. DODGE, CAMP SONS OF VETERANS,
Georgetown, Mass.
As I stand here, I remember that when I was a boy ten, twelve or
fourteen years old my great ambition was that Thanksgiving and
Christmas would come, so I could walk some fourteen miles and spend
these days with my grandfathers, grandmothers, uncles, aunts and
cousins. In those days they all, or,nearly all, lived in Georgetown
and Rowley, they were accustomed to feed me on all the good things
including hard cider and mince pie, and they were the happy days of
my life.  Some of these young veterans must have known 'this
experience when they named their Camp for me, and I wish to say
that the good teachings and examples I imbibed at those re-unions
lasted me for a life time, and were many times of great assistance in
my struggles and hardships. I appreciate just as fully as a person can
the high compliment you have paid me in naming your Camp for me.
It could not be done so well and so fully in any other place, or under
any other circumstances.
Since those days I have seen our country grow from the Lakes to
the Pacific, so that one journeying over it could not recognize it, but
here the change is small, the customs almost all unchanged; Thank
God! they were too good to change, and I come back to them better
pleased to-day, for if it were not so I could not recognize the haunts 
of my boyhood.
You are the sons of veterans in war.  Your fathers had but one
thought, one motive, but one prayer, that was when their country was  4
plunged into a great civil war that they should do their utmost, lay
down their lives if necessary, to sustain the Government, maintain its
flag, and demanding nothing but unconditional surrender from the
enemy, and now when a warring foe stands before us, treacherous,
and deceitful in its methods, what is your duty? It is the same as your
fathers was, for Government, for flag and for country.  No question
of policy or what the future has for us should intervene. Demand of




GEN. G. M. DODGE CAMP SONS OF VETERANS


93


your Government the same devotion to duty that Lincoln gave' us,
from your Generals the same victories that Grant, Sheridan, Sherman,
Meade and Thomas gave, and finally when unconditional surrender
comes, give them the treatment that-Grant did, that shall make them
look upon us as a great and magnanimous nation, that forces them to
like us and feel thankful that we thoroughly thrashed them. When a
nation is at war its people.have no right to do aught but support it..Vhen it has conquered its foes it is time enough to criticise, and discover its mistakes and discuss and lay down the policy that shall be
used by us in treating the enemy. Do not forget the history of all
people who failed to support their government when its flag was fired
t      upon. There is no instance where the people of a country have failed
to supporttheir flag that their nation has not lost its position in the
world and gone to decay. When a nation is defeated in battle by a
superior force it is not disgraced, but it obtains an honorable peace,
but when a nation by force of arms is rescued from hundreds of years
of misery and suffering and persecution and then turns upon its
rescuers, its treachery is such that there can be but one result, that is
defeat and punishment for its ungratefulness, and that will be the
result now.




UNVEILING OF THE


LOGAN MONUMENT
IN WASHINGTON, D. C., APRIL 1901.
As the President of the Society of the Army of the Tennessee, I
have been honored in being selected to preside over this distinguished
assemblage, and in behalf of that Society, the Grand Army of the
Republic and the Congress of the United States, to whom we owe the
erection of this artistic and beautiful statue, I welcome you to its
unveiling.
The President of the United States and distinguished statesmen will
speak to you of General Logan as an eminent citizen, gallant soldier
anrd great statesman. I simply desire to pay my tribute to him as his
comrade and friend from the time we met in the civil war until his
death, and one who since those days has had the close friendship of
his family and that son, who, following the example of his father,
entered the service of his country in the Spanish war, serving faithfully to the benefit of his country and to his own great credit and
honor, finally in line of his duty falling in battle in the Philippines.
General Logan's service in the civil war was as a part of the Army
of the Tennessee. He entered it as the Colonel of a regiment, and
filled all the grades until he became its commander, and under his
command and direction it was mustered out and disbanded at the end
of the war. He took part in all its campaigns and battles, and to us
of that army who knew him so well, and saw him so often in camp, on
the march and in battle, is given the knowledge necessary to appreciate more than others his great services to his country. To us he
was the ideal soldier, who always led.  He was by nature ardent,
enthusiastic, vehement in action-qualities which command the admiration of the soldier. He was at his best in battle, ever forward,
ever onward, his mottu was to conquer or die, he infused his spirit
into his regiment, his brigade, his division, his corps, and finally into
that grand old Army of the Tennessee.




LOGAN MONUMENT


95


After the war General Logan devoted his time and energies in the
halls of Congress to measures that were for the benefit of his com*i     rades. To him we are indebted for establishment of the national holiday, known as Decoration Day, and no soldier ever appealed to him
without receiving a ready response and prompt command of his
services. I can speak of this from my own knowledge.  General
Logan often said to me "The demands of my old comrades have been
so great that it takes most of my time, but how can I refuse them:"
and he'never did.
On behalf of the army of the Tennessee, and those who have been
instrumental in erecting in the capital of the nation this tribute to
/      General Logan, I wish to thank the sculptor,. Franklin Simmons, for
the satisfactory, artistic and life-like statue he has given us.
t0








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