Memoirs of General William T. Sherman — Complete
continued to command the former, and on the 12th of October I
dispatched Brigadier-General A. McD. McCook to command the latter,
which had been moved forward to Nolin Creek, fifty-two miles out of
Louisville, toward Bowling Green. Staff-officers began to arrive
to relieve us of the constant drudgery which, up to that time, had
been forced on General Anderson and myself; and these were all good
men. Colonel Thomas Swords, quartermaster, arrived on the 13th;
Paymaster Larned on the 14th; and Lieutenant Smyzer, Fifth
Artillery, acting ordnance-officer, on the 20th; Captain Symonds
was already on duty as the commissary of subsistence; Captain O.
D. Greene was the adjutant-general, and completed a good working
staff.
The everlasting worry of citizens complaining of every petty
delinquency of a soldier, and forcing themselves forward to discuss
politics, made the position of a commanding general no sinecure. I
continued to strengthen the two corps forward and their routes of
supply; all the time expecting that Sidney Johnston, who was a real
general, and who had as correct information of our situation as I
had, would unite his force with Zollicoffer, and fall on Thomas at
Dick Robinson, or McCook at Nolin: Had he done so in October, 1861,
he could have walked into Louisville, and the vital part of the
population would have hailed him as a deliverer. Why he did not,
was to me a mystery then and is now; for I know that he saw the
move; and had his wagons loaded up at one time for a start toward
Frankfort, passing between our two camps. Conscious of our
weakness, I was unnecessarily unhappy, and doubtless exhibited it
too much to those near me; but it did seem to me that the
Government at Washington, intent on the larger preparations of
Fremont in Missouri and McClellan in Washington, actually ignored
us in Kentucky.
About this time, say the middle of October, I received notice, by
telegraph, that the Secretary of War, Mr. Cameron (then in St.
Louis), would visit me at Louisville, on his way back to
Washington. I was delighted to have an opportunity to properly
represent the actual state of affairs, and got Mr. Guthrie to go
with me across to Jeffersonville, to meet the Secretary of War and
escort him to Louisville. The train was behind time, but Mr.
Guthrie and I waited till it actually arrived. Mr. Cameron was
attended by Adjutant-General Lorenzo Thomas, and six or seven
gentlemen who turned out to be newspaper reporters. Mr. Cameron's
first inquiry was, when he could start for Cincinnati, saying that,
as he had been detained at St. Louis so long, it was important he
should hurry on to Washington. I explained that the regular
mail-boat would leave very soon--viz., at 12 M.--but I begged him
to come over to Louisville; that I wanted to see him on business as
important as any in Washington, and hoped he would come and spend
at least a day with us. He asked if every thing was not well with
us, and I told him far from it; that things were actually bad, as
bad as bad could be. This seemed to surprise him, and Mr. Guthrie
added his persuasion to mine; when Mr. Cameron, learning that he
could leave Louisville by rail via Frankfort next morning early,
and make the same connections at Cincinnati, consented to go with
us to Louisville, with the distinct understanding that he must
leave early the next morning for Washington.
We accordingly all took hacks, crossed the river by the ferry, and
drove to the Galt House, where I was then staying. Brigadier-
General T. J. Wood had come down from Indianapolis by the same
train, and was one of the party. We all proceeded to my room on
the first floor of the Galt House, where our excellent landlord,
Silas Miller, Esq., sent us a good lunch and something to drink.
Mr. Cameron was not well, and lay on my bed, but joined in the
general conversation. He and his party seemed to be full of the
particulars of the developments in St. Louis of some of Fremont's
extravagant contracts and expenses, which were the occasion of
Cameron's trip to St. Louis, and which finally resulted in
Fremont's being relieved, first by General Hunter, and after by
General H. W. Halleck.
After some general conversation, Mr. Cameron called to me, "Now,
General Sherman, tell us of your troubles." I said I preferred not
to discuss business with so many strangers present. He said,
"They are all friends, all members of my family, and you may speak
your mind freely and without restraint." I am sure I stepped to
the door, locked it to prevent intrusion, and then fully and fairly
represented the state of affairs in Kentucky, especially the
situation and numbers of my troops. I complained that the new
levies of Ohio and Indiana were diverted East and West, and we got
scarcely any thing; that our forces at Nolin and Dick Robinson were
powerless for invasion, and only tempting to a general such as we
believed Sidney Johnston to be; that, if Johnston chose, he could
march to Louisville any day. Cameron exclaimed: "You astonish me!
Our informants, the Kentucky Senators and members of Congress,
claim that they have in Kentucky plenty of men, and all they want
are arms and money." I then said it was not true; for the young
men were arming and going out openly in broad daylight to the rebel
camps, provided with good horses and guns by their fathers, who
were at best "neutral;" and as to arms, he had, in Washington,
promised General Anderson forty thousand of the best Springfield
muskets, instead of which we had received only about twelve
thousand Belgian muskets, which the Governor of Pennsylvania had
refused, as had also the Governor of Ohio, but which had been
adjudged good enough for Kentucky. I asserted that volunteer
colonels raising regiments in various parts of the State had come
to Louisville for arms, and when they saw what I had to offer had
scorned to receive them--to confirm the truth of which I appealed
to Mr. Guthrie, who said that every word I had spoken was true, and
he repeated what I had often heard him say, that no man who owned a
slave or a mule in Kentucky could be trusted.
Mr. Cameron appeared alarmed at what was said, and turned to
Adjutant-General L. Thomas, to inquire if he knew of any troops
available, that had not been already assigned. He mentioned
Negley's Pennsylvania Brigade, at Pittsburg, and a couple of other
regiments that were then en route for St. Louis. Mr. Cameron
ordered him to divert these to Louisville, and Thomas made the
telegraphic orders on the spot. He further promised, on reaching
Washington, to give us more of his time and assistance.
In the general conversation which followed, I remember taking a
large map of the United States, and assuming the people of the
whole South to be in rebellion, that our task was to subdue them,
showed that McClellan was on the left, having a frontage of less
than a hundred miles, and Fremont the right, about the same;
whereas I, the centre, had from the Big Sandy to Paducah, over
three hundred miles of frontier; that McClellan had a hundred
thousand men, Fremont sixty thousand, whereas to me had only been
allotted about eighteen thousand. I argued that, for the purpose
of defense we should have sixty thousand men at once, and for
offense, would need two hundred thousand, before we were done. Mr.
Cameron, who still lay on the bed, threw up his hands and
exclaimed, "Great God! where are they to come from?" I asserted
that there were plenty of men at the North, ready and willing to
come, if he would only accept their services; for it was notorious
that regiments had been formed in all the Northwestern States,
whose services had been refused by the War Department, on the
ground that they would not be needed. We discussed all these
matters fully, in the most friendly spirit, and I thought I had
aroused Mr. Cameron to a realization of the great war that was
before us, and was in fact upon us. I heard him tell General
Thomas to make a note of our conversation, that he might attend to
my requests on reaching Washington. We all spent the evening
together agreeably in conversation, many Union citizens calling to
pay their respects, and the next morning early we took the train
for Frankfort; Mr. Cameron and party going on to Cincinnati and
Washington, and I to Camp Dick Robinson to see General Thomas and
the troops there.
I found General Thomas in a tavern, with most of his regiments
camped about him. He had sent a small force some miles in advance
toward Cumberland Gap, under Brigadier-General Schoepf. Remaining
there a couple of days, I returned to Louisville; on the 22d of
October, General Negley's brigade arrived in boats from Pittsburg,
was sent out to Camp Nolin; and the Thirty-seventh Indiana.,
Colonel Hazzard, and Second Minnesota, Colonel Van Cleve, also
reached Louisville by rail, and were posted at Elizabethtown and
Lebanon Junction. These were the same troops which had been
ordered by Mr. Cameron when at Louisville, and they were all that I
received thereafter, prior to my leaving Kentucky. On reaching
Washington, Mr. Cameron called on General Thomas, as he himself
afterward told me, to submit his memorandum of events during his
absence, and in that memorandum was mentioned my insane request for
two hundred thousand men. By some newspaper man this was seen and
published, and, before I had the least conception of it, I was
universally published throughout the country as "insane, crazy,"
etc. Without any knowledge, however, of this fact, I had
previously addressed to the Adjutant-General of the army at
Washington this letter:
HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OP THE CUMBERLAND, LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY,
October 22, 1881.
To General L. THOMAS, Adjutant-General, Washington, D. C.
Sir: On my arrival at Camp Dick Robinson, I found General
Thomas had stationed a Kentucky regiment at Rock Castle Hill,
beyond a river of the same name, and had sent an Ohio and an
Indiana regiment forward in support. He was embarrassed for
transportation, and I authorized him to hire teams, and to move his
whole force nearer to his advance-guard, so as to support it, as he
had information of the approach of Zollicoffer toward London. I
have just heard from him, that he had sent forward General Schoepf
with Colonel Wolford's cavalry, Colonel Steadman's Ohio regiment,
and a battery of artillery, followed on a succeeding day by a
Tennessee brigade. He had still two Kentucky regiments, the
Thirty-eighth Ohio and another battery of artillery, with which he
was to follow yesterday. This force, if concentrated, should be
strong enough for the purpose; at all events, it is all he had or I
could give him.
I explained to you fully, when here, the supposed position of our
adversaries, among which was a force in the valley of Big Sandy,
supposed to be advancing on Paris, Kentucky. General Nelson at
Maysville was instructed to collect all the men he could, and
Colonel Gill's regiment of Ohio Volunteers. Colonel Harris was
already in position at Olympian Springs, and a regiment lay at
Lexington, which I ordered to his support. This leaves the line of
Thomas's operations exposed, but I cannot help it. I explained so
fully to yourself and the Secretary of War the condition of things,
that I can add nothing new until further developments, You know my
views that this great centre of our field is too weak, far too
weak, and I have begged and implored till I dare not say more.
Buckner still is beyond Green River. He sent a detachment of his
men, variously estimated at from two to four thousand toward
Greensburg. General Ward, with about one thousand men, retreated
to Campbellsburg, where he called to his assistance some
partially-formed regiments to the number of about two thousand.