Forty-Six Years in the Army by John McAllister Schofield (best ebook reader under 100 .TXT) 📕

  "New York, February 14, 1884.
"Hon. John A. Logan, U. S. Senate, Washington, D. C.

"Dear Sir: In reply to your letter of the 11th, I have to say that my response must be from memory entirely, having no data at hand to refer to; but in regard to the order for you to go to Louisville and Nashville for the purpose of relieving General Thomas, I never thought of the question of who should command the combined armies of the Cumberland and the Ohio. I was simply dissatisfied with the slowness of General Thomas moving, and sent you out with orders to relieve him. No doubt if the order had been carried out, the question would immediately have arisen as to who was entitled to the command, provided General Schofield was senior in rank to you, which I do not know that he was. I know that his confirmation as a major-general took place long after yours, but I do not know the date of his commission. The question, in that case, of the command of the whole would have been settled in a very few hours by the use of the telegraph between Nashville and Washington. I was in Washington when you arrived at Louisville and telegraphed me that General Thomas had moved, and, as I remember the telegram, expressing gratification that he had done so. I was then on my way to Nashville myself, and remained over a day in Washington, hoping that Thomas might still move. Of course I was gratified when I learned that he had moved, because it was a very delicate and unpleasant matter to remove a man of General Thomas's character and standing before the country; but still I had urged him so long to move that I had come to think it a duty. Of course in sending you to relieve General Thomas, I meant no reflection whatever upon General Schofield, who was commanding the Army of the Ohio, because I thought that he had done very excellent service in punishing the entire force under Hood a few days before, some twenty-five miles south of Nashville. Very truly yours,

"U. S. Grant "(per Frank F. Wood)."

  "New York, February 23, 1884.
"Gen. John A. Logan, U. S. Senate, Washington, D. C.

"Dear General: Since I have been confined to my room I have conducted all my correspondence through a secretary, who is a stenographer, and he takes my dictation to the office and writes the letters out there as dictated, and by my direction signs my name. I intended that the letter which I wrote to you should be brought back to me for my own signature, and I sign this myself to show my entire responsibility for the one which you have just received, and which I hope was satisfactory to you.

  "Very truly yours,
  "U. S. Grant."

The passion and prejudice begotten in the minds of Thomas's soldiers and their friends by injustice, real or fancied, done or proposed to be done to him by his superiors in rank, have rendered impossible any calm discussion of questions touching his military career. There is not yet, and probably will not be in our lifetime, a proper audience for such discussion. But posterity will award justice to all if their deeds have been such as to save their names from oblivion.

Time works legitimate "revenge," and makes all things even. When I was a boy at West Point I was court-martialed for tolerating some youthful "deviltry" of my classmates, in which I took no part myself, and was sentenced to be dismissed. Thomas, then already a veteran soldier, was a member of the court, and he and one other were the only ones of thirteen members who declined to recommend that the sentence be remitted. This I learned in 1868, when I was Secretary of War. Only twelve years later I was able to repay this then unknown stern denial of clemency to a youth by saving the veteran soldier's army from disaster, and himself from the humiliation of dismissal from command on the eve of victory. Five years later still, I had the satisfaction, by intercession with the President, of saving the same veteran general from assignment to an inferior command, and of giving him the military division to which my assignment had been ordered. When death had finally relieved him from duty, and not till then, did I consent to be his successor. In 1879 I had the satisfaction, after many months of patient investigation, of rendering justice to the other of those two unrelenting soldiers who, of all the thirteen, could not find it in their hearts to recommend clemency to an erring youth; I was president of the board which reversed the judgment of the court- martial in the case of Fitz-John Porter.

I believe it must now be fully known to all who are qualified to judge and have had by personal association or by study of history full opportunities to learn the truth, that General Thomas did not possess in a high degree the activity of mind necessary to foresee and provide for all the exigencies of military operations, nor the mathematical talent required to estimate "the relations of time, space, motion, and force" involved in great problems of war. His well-known high qualities in other respects obscured these imperfections from the great majority of those who surrounded him during the war, and rendered the few educated soldiers who were able to understand his true merits the more anxious to aid him and save him from personal defeat. And no one, I am sure, of his comrades in arms desires to detract from the great fame which is justly his due; for, according to the best judgment of mankind, moral qualities, more than intellectual, are the foundation of a great and enduring fame. It was "Old Pap" Thomas, not General Thomas, who was beloved by the Army of the Cumberland; and it is the honest, conscientious patriot, the firm, unflinching old soldier, not the general, whose name will be most respected in history.

Of the general details of the battle of Nashville I do not propose to speak, but simply to notice a few of its most important points. The plan of battle, as published, placed my command—the Twenty- third Corps—in the left center of our line, where only a feint was to be made. The Fourth Corps was to carry a salient advanced line, while the main attack was to be made on the enemy's extreme left by A. J. Smith's corps and the cavalry. After the order was prepared I went to General Thomas with a map of the position showing the exact length of the several parts of the enemy's line, and explained to him that the force he had assigned to our left wing was at least 10,000 men more than could be used to any advantage unless for a real attack; and that, on the other hand, Smith's force was not large enough for the real attack, considering the extent of the ground occupied by the enemy on that flank. Hence I suggested that my corps should support Smith instead of remaining on the left of Wood. To this suggestion General Thomas readily acceded, and orally authorized me to carry it into effect, but made no change in his written order. The result of this change of plan was that the close of the first day's engagement found the Twenty- third Corps on the extreme right of our infantry line, in the most advanced position captured from the enemy. Yet General Thomas, in his official report, made no mention of this change of plan, but said "the original plan of battle, with but few alterations, [was] strictly adhered to."( 1) The "alterations" were certainly "few". A change from 10,000 to 20,000 infantry in the main attacking force may not properly be described as many "alterations," but it looks like one very large one—sufficient, one would suppose, to determine the difference between failure and success.

The plan of battle issued December 14 had been matured and made known to the principal subordinate commanders several days before, when General Thomas intended to attack, but was prevented by the storm. Hence there had been ample time for critical consideration and discussion of the details of that plan, the result of which was the modification made at the conference in the afternoon or evening of December 14, which modification was not embodied in the written order, but was orally directed to be carried out. If General Thomas had caused that clerical work to be done in the evening of December 14, his published orders and his battle of December 15 would have been in complete harmony. There would not, so far as I know, have been even a "few alterations." In this connection, the difference between the "Special Field Order No. 342" of December 14, as recorded in General Thomas's order-book, and the copy embodied in his official report, as explained in a foot-note in the War Records, is not unimportant.( 2) In the order- book he says: "Major-General Schofield will mass the remainder of his force in front of the works and co-operate with General Wood, protecting the latter's left flank against an attack by the enemy"; but in his report the words "will move with" are substituted for "will mass." The latter, in military parlance, meant placing my corps in reserve, with a view to "co-operate with General Wood," etc., whenever such co-operation might be necessary; while the words used in Thomas's final report meant active co-operation with General Wood from the beginning of the engagement. In the body of his report General Thomas spoke of the position of the Twenty-third Corps as "in reserve," from which position it was ordered to the right to join A. J. Smith's troops in the attack. Hence it would seem that a position "in reserve" was what General Thomas had in mind both when he prepared his order of battle and when he wrote his report, and that the change to the words "will move with" was simply a clerical error.

After darkness had ended the first day's battle (December 15), I received an order in writing from General Thomas, which was in substance to pursue the retreating enemy early the next morning, my corps to take the advance on the Granny White pike, and was informed that the cavalry had been or would be ordered to start at the same time by a road on the right, and cross the Harpeth below Franklin. These orders seemed to be so utterly inapplicable to the actual situation that I rode to the rear to where General Thomas's headquarters were supposed to be, and there found that he had gone back to his house in Nashville, to which place I followed him. He appeared surprised at my suggestion that we would find Hood in line of battle ready to receive us in the morning, or even ready to strike our exposed right flank before we could renew the attack, instead of in full retreat, as he had assumed. I told him I knew Hood much better than he did, and I was sure he would not retreat. Finally, after considerable discussion I obtained a modification of the order so far as to direct the cavalry to remain where it was until Hood's action should be known, and an order for some of A. J. Smith's troops to support the right if necessary. But no orders whatever were given, to my knowledge, looking to a battle the next day—at least none for my troops or the cavalry.

The next morning revealed the enemy in his new position, his left remaining where