Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete
supplied an army of one hundred thousand men and thirty-five
thousand animals for the period of one hundred and ninety-six days,
viz., from May 1 to November 12, 1864. To have delivered regularly
that amount of food and forage by ordinary wagons would have
required thirty-six thousand eight hundred wagons of six mules
each, allowing each wagon to have hauled two tons twenty miles each
day, a simple impossibility in roads such as then existed in that
region of country. Therefore, I reiterate that the Atlanta
campaign was an impossibility without these railroads; and only
then, because we had the men and means to maintain and defend them,
in addition to what were necessary to overcome the enemy.
Habitually, a passenger-car will carry fifty men with their
necessary baggage. Box-cars, and even platform-cars, answer the
purpose well enough, but they, should always have rough
board-seats. For sick and wounded men, box-cars filled with straw
or bushes were usually employed. Personally, I saw but little of
the practical working of the railroads, for I only turned back once
as far as Resaca; but I had daily reports from the engineer in
charge, and officers who came from the rear often explained to me
the whole thing, with a description of the wrecked trains all the
way from Nashville to Atlanta. I am convinced that the risk to
life to the engineers and men on that railroad fully equaled that
on the skirmish-line, called for as high an order of courage, and
fully equaled it in importance. Still, I doubt if there be any
necessity in time of peace to organize a corps specially to work
the military railroads in time of war, because in peace these same
men gain all the necessary experience, possess all the daring and
courage of soldiers, and only need the occasional protection and
assistance of the necessary train-guard, which may be composed of
the furloughed men coming and going, or of details made from the
local garrisons to the rear.
For the transfer of large armies by rail, from one theatre of
action to another by the rear--the cases of the transfer of the
Eleventh and Twelfth Corps--General Hooker, twenty-three thousand
men--from the East to Chattanooga, eleven hundred and ninety-two
miles in seven days, in the fall of 1863; and that of the Army of
the Ohio--General Schofield, fifteen thousand men--from the valley
of the Tennessee to Washington, fourteen hundred miles in eleven
days, en route to North Carolina in January, 1865, are the best
examples of which I have any knowledge, and reference to these is
made in the report of the Secretary of War, Mr. Stanton, dated
November 22, 1865.
Engineer troops attached to an army are habitually employed in
supervising the construction of forts or field works of a nature
more permanent than the lines need by the troops in motion, and in
repairing roads and making bridges. I had several regiments of
this kind that were most useful, but as a rule we used the
infantry, or employed parties of freedmen, who worked on the
trenches at night while the soldiers slept, and these in turn
rested by day. Habitually the repair of the railroad and its
bridges was committed to hired laborers, like the English navies,
under the supervision of Colonel W. W. Wright, a railroad-engineer,
who was in the military service at the time, and his successful
labors were frequently referred to in the official reports of the
campaign.
For the passage of rivers, each army corps had a pontoon-train with
a detachment of engineers, and, on reaching a river, the leading
infantry division was charged with the labor of putting it down.
Generally the single pontoon-train could provide for nine hundred
feet of bridge, which sufficed; but when the rivers were very wide
two such trains would be brought together, or the single train was
supplemented by a trestle-bridge, or bridges made on crib-work, out
of timber found near the place. The pontoons in general use were
skeleton frames, made with a hinge, so as to fold back and
constitute a wagon-body. In this same wagon were carried the
cotton canvas cover, the anchor and chains, and a due proportion of
the balks, cheeses, and lashings. All the troops became very
familiar with their mechanism and use, and we were rarely delayed
by reason of a river, however broad. I saw, recently, in
Aldershot, England, a very complete pontoon-train; the boats were
sheathed with wood and felt, made very light; but I think these
were more liable to chafing and damage in rough handling than were
our less expensive and rougher boats. On the whole, I would prefer
the skeleton frame and canvas cover to any style of pontoon that I
have ever seen.
In relation to guards, pickets, and vedettes, I doubt if any
discoveries or improvements were made during our war, or in any of
the modern wars in Europe. These precautions vary with the nature
of the country and the situation of each army. When advancing or
retreating in line of battle, the usual skirmish-line constitutes
the picket-line, and may have "reserves," but usually the main line
of battle constitutes the reserve; and in this connection I will
state that the recent innovation introduced into the new infantry
tactics by General Upton is admirable, for by it each regiment,
brigade, and division deployed, sends forward as "skirmishers" the
one man of each set of fours, to cover its own front, and these can
be recalled or reenforced at pleasure by the bugle-signal.
For flank-guards and rear-guards, one or more companies should be
detached under their own officers, instead of making up the guard
by detailing men from the several companies.
For regimental or camp guards, the details should be made according
to existing army regulations; and all the guards should be posted
early in the evening, so as to afford each sentinel or vedette a
chance to study his ground before it becomes too dark.
In like manner as to the staff. The more intimately it comes into
contact with the troops, the more useful and valuable it becomes.
The almost entire separation of the staff from the line, as now
practised by us, and hitherto by the French, has proved
mischievous, and the great retinues of staff-officers with which
some of our earlier generals began the war were simply ridiculous.
I don't believe in a chief of staff at all, and any general
commanding an army, corps, or division, that has a staff-officer
who professes to know more than his chief, is to be pitied. Each
regiment should have a competent adjutant, quartermaster, and
commissary, with two or three medical officers. Each brigade
commander should have the same staff, with the addition of a couple
of young aides-de-camp, habitually selected from the subalterns of
the brigade, who should be good riders, and intelligent enough to
give and explain the orders of their general.
The same staff will answer for a division. The general in command
of a separate army, and of a corps d'armée, should have the same
professional assistance, with two or more good engineers, and his
adjutant-general should exercise all the functions usually ascribed
to a chief of staff, viz., he should possess the ability to
comprehend the scope of operations, and to make verbally and in
writing all the orders and details necessary to carry into effect
the views of his general, as well as to keep the returns and
records of events for the information of the next higher authority,
and for history. A bulky staff implies a division of
responsibility, slowness of action, and indecision, whereas a small
staff implies activity and concentration of purpose. The smallness
of General Grant's staff throughout the civil war forms the best
model for future imitation. So of tents, officers furniture, etc.,
etc. In real war these should all be discarded, and an army is
efficient for action and motion exactly in the inverse ratio of its
impedimenta. Tents should be omitted altogether, save one to a
regiment for an office, and a few for the division hospital.
Officers should be content with a tent fly, improvising poles and
shelter out of bushes. The tents d'abri, or shelter-tent, carried
by the soldier himself, is all-sufficient. Officers should never
seek for houses, but share the condition of their men.
A recent message (July 18, 1874) made to the French Assembly by
Marshal MacMahon, President of the French Republic, submits a
projet de loi, with a report prepared by a board of French generals
on "army administration," which is full of information, and is as
applicable to us as to the French. I quote from its very
beginning: "The misfortunes of the campaign of 1870 have
demonstrated the inferiority of our system.... Two separate
organizations existed with parallel functions--the 'general' more
occupied in giving direction to his troops than in providing for
their material wants, which he regarded as the special province of
the staff, and the 'intendant' (staff) often working at random,
taking on his shoulders a crushing burden of functions and duties,
exhausting himself with useless efforts, and aiming to accomplish
an insufficient service, to the disappointment of everybody. This
separation of the administration and command, this coexistence of
two wills, each independent of the other, which paralyzed both and
annulled the dualism, was condemned. It was decided by the board
that this error should be "proscribed" in the new military system.
The report then goes on at great length discussing the provisions.
of the "new law," which is described to be a radical change from
the old one on the same subject. While conceding to the Minister
of War in Paris the general control and supervision of the entire
military establishment primarily, especially of the annual
estimates or budget, and the great depots of supply, it distributes
to the commanders of the corps d'armée in time of peace, and to all
army commanders generally in time of war, the absolute command of
the money, provisions, and stores, with the necessary staff-
officers to receive, issue, and account for them. I quote further:
"The object of this law is to confer on the commander of troops
whatever liberty of action the case demands. He has the power even
to go beyond the regulations, in circumstances of urgency and
pressing necessity. The extraordinary measures he may take on
these occasions may require their execution without delay. The
staff-officer has but one duty before obeying, and that is to
submit his observations to the general, and to ask his orders in
writing.
With this formality his responsibility ceases, and the
responsibility for the extraordinary act falls solely on the
general who gives the order. The officers and agents charged with
supplies are placed under the orders of the general in command of
the troops, that is, they are obliged both in war and peace to
obey, with the single qualification above named, of first making
their observations and securing the written order of the general.
With us, to-day, the law and regulations are that, no matter what
may be the emergency, the commanding general in Texas, New Mexico,
and the remote frontiers, cannot draw from the arsenals a pistol-
cartridge, or any sort of ordnance-stores, without first procuring
an order of the Secretary of War in Washington. The commanding
general--though intrusted with the lives of his soldiers and with
the safety of a frontier in a condition of chronic war--cannot
touch or be trusted with ordnance-stores or property, and that is
declared to be the law! Every officer of the old army remembers
how, in 1861, we were hampered with the old blue army regulations,
which tied our hands, and that to do any thing positive and
necessary we had to tear it all to pieces--cut the red-tape, as it