Chapter
Thirteen
Winter
Quarters
“Sometime in the early morning”,
wrote R.M. Collins of the Texas Brigade “we arrived at Tunnel Hill [Georgia] and
took a position on a high range of hills south of town. The Yankees were
satisfied to let us alone, and Gen. Bragg seemed satisfied with being left
alone. Here we went into winter quarters.” In Bragg’s report of the Chattanooga
Campaign, which he wrote before resigning, he blamed the soldiers for the
defeat. “No satisfactory excuse can possibly be given for the shameful conduct
of our troops on the left in allowing their lines to be penetrated. The
position was one which ought to have been held by skirmishers against any
assaulting columns.” His letter of resignation accepted, Bragg handed over
temporary command of the army at Dalton
to Hardee. On December 18, after a long debate in Richmond,
Joseph E. Johnston was ordered to turn the command of his troops in Mississippi over to Polk
and assume command of the Army of Tennessee. He arrived in Dalton two days after Christmas to a hearty
reception. (1)
In a telegram from the secretary of
war, the situation in Dalton
was briefly outlined. “It is apprehended the army may have been, by recent
events, somewhat disheartened, and deprived of ordnance and material”, it read.
Nevertheless, the letter urged Johnston to
“resume the offensive” as soon as the army was ready to fight; inactivity, it
was feared, would only allow the enemy to build his forces in Tennessee. After a quick assessment of the
camps around Dalton, Johnston replied that while he had little knowledge of the
enemy but that their forces in Chattanooga
amounted to around 80,000 men, he knew the Army of Tennessee was not
ready to “resume the offensive” any time soon. “It is deficient in numbers,
arms, subsistence stores and field transportation”, he wrote. Johnston
summarized that presently, the troops barely exceeded “half the number that
fought…at Chickamauga”.
In reply, Davis again urged Johnston to resume the offensive:
The reports
concerning the battle at Missionary Ridge show
that our loss in killed and wounded was not great, and that the reverse
sustained is not attributable to any general demoralization or reluctance to
encounter the opposing army. The brilliant stand made by the rear-guard at Ringgold
sustains this belief.
Quoting
his new military advisor, Bragg, Davis
wrote, “We can redeem the past. Let us concentrate all our available men, unite
them with this little army, still full of zeal, and burning to redeem its lost
character and prestige—hurl the whole upon the enemy, and crush him in all his
power and glory.” (2)
Johnston divided the army
into two corps: one commanded by Hardee and the other commanded by Hindman, who
had recently returned to the army after being suspended by Bragg for the
McLemore’s Cove incident. Hardee’s Corps consisted of Cheatham’s,
Breckenridge’s and Cleburne’s
divisions; Hindman’s Corps consisted of Stevenson’s, Stewart’s, and his old
division.
Cleburne’s camp at Tunnel
Hill commanded a good position on the road from Ringgold to Dalton. Barricades were constructed on a hill
south of town where the division built their crude winter huts and a strong
reconnaissance force was kept out night and day to observe the enemy’s
movements. With the promotion of both Govan and Granbury, Cleburne held a class daily with his generals
in one of the winter huts on the art of war.
Both Hindman and Cleburne were concerned about the direction
of the war. In a letter to the Memphis
Appeal, then being published in Atlanta,
Hindman outlined a proposal which he believed would turn the tide of defeat to
victory. Being pressed on all sides, Hindman estimated that the South would
need 400,000 new troops to repel the enemy’s advance. One of the ways to fill
this void, he suggested, was to enlist blacks into the
service with monthly pay and assured freedom for those who fought well. On
December 17, Hindman and Cleburne,
along with ten other generals, signed a petition, which called for the end of
draft exemption for government officials. In addition, it suggested that blacks
replace white cooks, teamsters, and hospital attendants to raise the number of
troops.
When not drilling the troops, Cleburne spent much of
his time at headquarters, busily working on a lengthy document. When Buck asked
the general what it was he was working on, Cleburne handed the assistant adjutant the
finished document and asked him his opinion of it. Buck had only to read the
title: “Proposal To Make Soldiers of Slaves and
Guarantee Freedom To All Loyal Negroes.” After reading it in its entirety, Buck
agreed with Cleburne
on many points, but questioned the feasibility of the proposal. Would the plantation
owners agree to free their slaves for the good of the country without receiving
any compensation? Another objection, which Buck raised, was the timing of such
an explosive document. He reminded Cleburne
that a vacancy for a lieutenant general’s job was waiting to be filled and that
he was a likely candidate for that job. Buck recalled:
To that he answered
that a crisis was upon the South, the danger of which he was convinced could
most quickly be averted in the way outlined, and feeling it to be his duty to
bring this before the authorities, he would try to do
so, irrespective of any personal result.
Cleburne told Buck that if he was court-marshaled
as a result of his proposal, he would enlist as a private with his old
regiment, the 15th Arkansas.
Although his staff’s reaction was mixed, his brigadier generals were unanimous
in their support. When they had signed their names at the bottom of the
document, Cleburne notified the generals of the
army to assemble at Johnston’s
headquarters on the night of January 2, 1864 for an important meeting. (3)
As the sun set on January 2, Cleburne, with his document tucked safely inside his
saddle bag, rode to Johnston’s headquarters at 314 Selvidge Street in Dalton with his staff officer, Calhoun
Benham. It was perhaps was tense ride; days before, Benham had strongly
objected to Cleburne’s
document and had asked for a copy of it so he could prepare a rebuttal. A short
time into the ride, they were met by Hindman and the three arrived at the house
only minutes from the appointed hour.
Stepping into the warm house, they heard
the casual conversations of half a dozen officers already there. After everyone
arrived and was seated, Hardee arose and explained that Major General Cleburne
had prepared a paper on an “important subject”. All eyes turned to Cleburne as he arose and
addressed the assembly in a distinctive Irish accent: “Commanding General, The Corps, Division, Brigade
and Regimental Commanders, of the Army of Tennessee”. Pausing, he took a breath
and then began reading the proposal from the prospective of its signers, laying
out the points like a lawyer:
Moved by the exigency in
which our country is now placed, we take the liberty of laying
before you, unofficially, our views of the present state of affairs. The
subject is so grave, and our views so new, we feel it a duty both to you and
the cause that before going further we should submit them for your judgment and
receive your suggestions in regard to them. We therefore respectfully ask you
to give us an expression of your views in the premises. We have now been
fighting for nearly three years, have spilled much of our best blood, and lost,
consumed or thrown to the flames an amount of property equal in value to the
specie currency of the world. Through some lack in our system the fruits of our
struggles and sacrifices have invariably slipped away from us and left us
nothing but long lists of dead and mangled. Instead of standing defiantly in
the borders of our territory or harassing those of the enemy, we are today
hemmed in today in less than two-thirds of it, and still the enemy menacingly
confronts us at every point with superior forces. Our soldiers see no end to
this state of affairs except in our own exhaustion; hence, instead of rising to
the occasion, they are sinking into a fatal apathy, growing weary of hardships
and slaughter which promises no results. In this state of things it is easy to
understand why there is a growing belief that some black catastrophe is not far
ahead of us, and that unless some extraordinary change is soon made in our
condition we must overtake it. The consequences of this condition are showing
themselves more plainly every day; restlessness of morals spreading everywhere,
manifesting itself in the army in a growing disregard for private rights;
desertion spreading to a class of soldiers in never dared to tamper with
before; military commissions sinking in the estimation of the soldier; our
supplies failing; our firesides in ruins. If this state continues much longer
we must be subjugated. Every man ought to endeavor to understand the meaning of
subjugation before it is too late. We can give but a faint idea when we say it
means the loss of all we now hold most sacred - slaves and all other personal
property, lands, homesteads, liberty, justice, safety, pride, manhood. It means
that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our
youth will be taught by Northern school teachers; will learn from Northern
school books their version of the war; will be impressed by all the influences
of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, or maimed veterans
as fit objects for derision. It means the crushing of Southern manhood, the
hatred of our former slaves, who will, on a spy system, be our secret police.
The conqueror's policy is to divide the conquered into factions and stir up
animosity among them, and in training an army of Negroes the North no doubt
holds this thought in perspective. We can see three great causes operating to
destroy us: First, the inferiority of our armies to those of the enemy in point
of numbers; Second, the poverty of our single source of supply in comparison
with his several sources; Third, the fact that slavery, from being one of our
chief sources of strength at the commencement of the war, has now become, in a
military view, one of our chief sources of weakness.
The enemy already opposes
us at every point with superior numbers, and is endeavoring to make the
preponderance irresistible. President Davis, in his recent message, says the
enemy "has recently ordered a large conscription and made a subsequent
call for volunteers, to be followed, if ineffectual, by a still further
draft." In addition, the President of the United States announces that " he has already in training an army of 100,000 Negroes
as good as any troops." and every fresh raid he make and new slice of
territory he wrests from us will add to this force. Every soldier in our army
already knows and feels our numerical inferiority to the enemy. Want of men in
the field has prevented him from reaping the fruits of his victories, and has
prevented him from having the furlough he expected after the last
reorganization; and when he turns from the wasting armies in the field to look
at the source of supply, he finds nothing in the prospect to encourage him, our
single source of supply is that portion of our white men fit for duty and not
now in the ranks. The enemy has three chief sources of supply: First, his own
motley population; Secondly, our slaves; and Thirdly, Europeans whose hearts
are fired into a crusade against us by fictitious pictures of the atrocities of
slavery, and who meet no hindrance from their governments in such enterprise,
because these governments are equally antagonistic to the institution. In
touching the third cause, the fact that slavery has become a military weakness,
we may rouse prejudice and passion, but the time has come when it would be
madness not to look at our danger from every point of view, and to probe it to
the bottom. Apart from the assistance that home and foreign prejudice against
slavery has given the North, slavery is a source of great strength to the enemy
in a purely military point of view, by supplying him with an army from our
granaries; but it is our most vulnerable point, a continued embarrassment, and
in some respects an insidious weakness. Wherever slavery is disturbed, whether
by actual presence of the approach of the enemy, or even by a cavalry raid, the
whites can no longer with safety to their property openly sympathize with our
cause. The fear of their slaves is continually haunting them, and from silence
and apprehension many of these soon learn to wish the war stopped on any terms.
The next stage is to take the oath to save the property, and they become dead
to us, if not open to our enemies. To prevent raids we are forced to scatter
our forces, and war not free to move and strike like the enemy; his vulnerable
points are carefully selected and fortified depots. Ours are found in every
point where there is a slave to set free. All along the lines slavery is
comparatively valueless to us for labor, but of great and increasing worth to
the enemy for information. It is an omnipresent spy system, pointing out our
valuable men to the enemy, revealing our positions, purposes, and resources,
and yet acting so safely and secretly that there is no means to guard against
it. Even in the heart of our country, where our hold upon this secret espionage
is firmest, it waits but the opening fire of the enemy's battle line to wake
it, like a torpid serpent, into venomous activity.
In view of the state of
affairs what does our country propose to do? In the words of President Davis,
"no effort must be spared to add largely to our effective forces as
promptly as possible. The sources of supply are to be found in restoring to the
army all who are improperly absent, purring an end to substitution, modifying
the exemption law, restricting details, and placing in the ranks such of the
able-bodied men now employed as wagoners, nurses, cooks, and other employees,
as are doing service for which the Negroes may be found competent." Most
of the men improperly absent, together when many of the exempts and men having
substitutes, are now without the Confederate lines and cannot be calculated on.
If all the exempts capable of bearing arms were enrolled, it will give use the
boys below eighteen, the men above forty-five, and those persons who are left
at home to meet the wants of the country and the army; but this modification of
the exemption law will remove from the fields and manufactories most of the
skill that directs agriculture and mechanical labor, and, as stated by the
President, "details will have to be made to meet the wants of the
country," thus sending many of the men to be derived from this source back
to their homes again. Independently of this, experience proves that striplings,
and men above conscript age, break down and swill the sick lists more than they
do the ranks. The portion now in our lines of the class who have substitutes is
not on the whole a hopeful element, for the motives that created it must have
stronger than patriotism, and these motives, added to what many of them will
call a breach of faith, will cause some to be not forthcoming, and other to be
unwilling and discontented soldiers. The remaining sources mentioned by the
President have been so closely pruned in the Army of Tennessee that they will
be found not to yield largely. The supply from all these sources, together with
what we now have in the field, will exhaust the white race, and though it
should greatly exceed expectations and put us on an equality
with the enemy, or even give us temporary advantages, still we have no reserve
to meet unexpected disaster or to supply a protracted struggle.
Like past years, 1864 will
diminish our ranks by the casualties of war, and what source of repairs is
there left to us? We therefore see in the recommendation of the President only
a temporary expedient, which at best will leave us twelve months hence in the
same predicament we are in now. The President attempts to meet only one of the
depressing causes mentioned; for the other two he has proposed no remedy. They
remain to generate lack of confidence in our final success, and to keep us
moving down hill as heretofore. Adequately to meet the causes which are now
threatening ruin to our country, we propose, in addition to a modification of
the President's plans, that we retain for the service for the war all troops
now in service, and that we immediately commence training a large reserve of
the most courageous of our slaves, and further that we guarantee freedom within
a reasonable amount of time to every slave in the South who shall remain true
to the Confederacy in the war. As between the loss of independence and the loss
of slavery, we assume that every patriot will freely give up the latter - give
up the Negro slaves rather than be a slave himself. If we are correct in this
assumption it only remains to show how this great national sacrifice is, in all
human probabilities, to change the current of success and sweep the invaders
from our country.
Our country has already
some friends in England and France, and
there are strong motives to induce these nations to recognize and assist us,
but they cannot assist without keeping slavery, and to do this would be in
conflict with their policy for the last quarter of a century. England has paid hundreds of millions to
emancipate here West Indies slaves and break
up the slave trade. Could she now consistently spend her treasure to reinstate
slavery in this country? But this barrier once removed, the sympathy and the
interests of these and other nations will accord with our own, and we may
expect from them both moral support and financial aid. One thing is certain, as
soon as the great sacrifice to independence is made and known in foreign
countries there will be a complete change of front in our favor of the
sympathies of the world. This measure will deprive the North of the moral and
material aid which it now derives from the bitter prejudices with which
foreigners view the institution, and its war, if continued, will henceforth be
so despicable in their eyes that the source of recruiting will be dried up. It
will leave the enemy's Negro army no motive to fight for, and will exhaust the
source from which it has been recruited. The idea that it
their special mission to war against slavery has held growing sway over
Northern people for many years, and has at length ripened into an armed and
bloody
crusade against it. This baleful superstition has so far supplied them with a
courage and constancy not their own. It is the most powerful and honestly
entertained plank in their war platform. Knock this away and what it left? A
bloody ambition for more territory, a pretended veneration for the Union, which
one of their own most distinguished orators (Doctor Beecher in his Liverpool speech) openly avowed was only used as a
stimulus to stir up the anti-slavery crusade, and lastly the poisonous and
selfish interests which are the fungus growth of war itself. Mankind may fancy
it a great duty to destroy slavery, but what interest can mankind
have in upholding this remainder of the Northern War Platform? Their
interests and feelings will be diametrically opposed to it. The measure we
propose will strike dead all John Brown fanaticism, and will compel the enemy
to draw off altogether, or in the eyes of the world to swallow the Declaration
of Independence without the sauce and disguise of philanthropy. This delusion
of fanaticism at an end, thousands of Northern people will have leisure to look
at home and to see the gulf of despotism into which they themselves are rushing.
The measure will at one
blow strip the enemy of foreign sympathy and assistance, and transfer them to
the South; it will dry up two of his three sources of recruiting; it will take
from his Negro army the only motive it could have to fight against the South,
and will probably cause much of it to desert over to us; it will deprive his
cause of the powerful stimulus of fanaticism, and will enable his to see the
rock on which his so-called friends are now piloting him. The immediate effect
of the emancipation and enrollment of Negroes on the military strength of the
South would be: To enable us to have armies numerically superior to those of
the North, and a reserve of any size we might think necessary; to take the
offensive, move forward, and forage on the enemy. It would open to us in
prospective another and almost untouched source of supply, and furnish us with
the means of preventing temporary disaster, and carrying on a protracted
struggle. It would instantly remove all the vulnerability, embarrassments, and
inherent weakness which no longer find every household surrounded by spies; the
fear that sealed the master's lips and the avarice that has, in many cases,
tempted practically to desert us would alike be removed. There would be no
recruits awaiting the enemy with open arms, no complete history of every
neighborhood with ready guides, no fear of insurrection in the rear, or
anxieties for the fate of loved ones when our armies moved forward. The chronic
irritation of hope deferred would be joyfully ended with the Negro, and the
sympathies of his whole race would be due in his native South. In would restore
confidence in an early termination of the war with all its inspiring
consequences, and even if contrary to all expectations the enemy should succeed
in overrunning the South, instead of finding a cheap ready-made means of
holding it down, he would find a common hatred and thirst for vengeance, which
would break into acts at every favorable opportunity, would prevent him from
settling on our lands, and render the South a very unprofitable conquest. It
would remove forever all selfish taint from our sauce and place independence
above every question of property. The very magnitude of the sacrifice itself,
such as no nation has ever voluntarily made before, would appall our enemies,
destroy his spirit and finances, and fill our hearts with a pride and
singleness of purpose which would clothe us with new strength in battle. Apart
from all other aspects of the question, the necessity for more fighting men is upon
us. We can only get a sufficiency by making the Negro share the danger and
hardships of the war. If we arm and train him and make him fight for the
country in her hour of dire distress, every consideration of principle and
policy demand that we should set him and his whole race who side with us free.
It is a first principle with mankind that he who offers his life in defense of
the State should receive from her in return his freedom and happiness, and we
believe in the acknowledgment of this principle. The Constitution of the
Southern States has reserved to their respective governments the power to free
slaves for meritorious service to the State. It is politic besides. For many
years, every since the agitation of the subject of slavery commenced, the Negro
has been dreaming of freedom, and his vivid imagination has surrounded that
condition with so many gratifications that is has become the paradise of his
hopes. To attain it he will tempt dangers and difficulties not exceeded by the
bravest soldiers in the field. The hope of freedom is perhaps the only moral
incentive that can be applied to him in his present condition. It would be
preposterous then to expect him t fights against it with any degree of
enthusiasm, therefore we must bind him to our cause by no doubtful bonds; we
must leave no possible loophole for treachery to creep in. The slaves are
dangerous now, but armed, trained, and collected in an army they would be a
thousand fold more dangerous; therefore, when we make soldiers of them we make
free men of them beyond all question, and thus enlist
their sympathies also. We can do this more effectually than the North can now
do, for we can give the Negro not only his own freedom, but that of his wife
and child, and can secure him it to him in his old home. To do this we must
immediately make his marriage and parental relations scared in the eyes of the
law and forbid their sale. The past legislation of the South concedes that a
large free middle class of Negro blood, between master and slave, must sooner
or later destroy the institution. If, then, we touch the institution at all, we
would do best to make the most of it, and by emancipating the whole race upon
reasonable terms and within such reasonable time as will prepare both races for
the change, secure to ourselves all the advantages, and to our enemies all the
disadvantages that can arise, both at home and abroad, from such a sacrifice.
Satisfy the Negro that if he faithfully adheres to our standard during the war
he shall receive his freedom and that of his race. Give him as an earnest of
our intentions such immediate immunities as will impress him with our sincerity
and be in keeping with his new condition, enroll a portion of his class as
soldiers of the Confederacy, and we change the race from a dreaded weakness to
a position of strength.
Will the slaves fight? The
helots of Sparta
stood their master good stead in battle. In the great sea fight of Lepanto
where the Christians checked forever the spread of Mohammedanism over Europe, the galley slaves of portions of the fleet were
promised freedom, and called on to fight at a critical moment of the battle.
They fought well, and civilization owes much to those brave galley slaves. The
Negro slaves of Saint Domingo, fighting for freedom, defeated their white
masters and the French troops sent against them. The Negro slaves of Jamaica
revolted, and under the name of the Maroons held the mountains against their
masters for 150 years, and the experience of this war has been so far that
half-trained Negroes have fought as bravely as many other half-trained Yankees.
If, contrary to the training of a lifetime, they can be made to face and fight
bravely against their former masters, how much more probable is it that with
the allurement of a higher reward, and led by those masters, they would submit
to discipline and face dangers.
We will briefly notice a few arguments against
this course. It is said republicanism cannot exist without the institution.
Even were this true, we prefer any form of government of which Southern people
may have the moulding, to one forced upon us by a conqueror. It is said the
white man cannon perform agricultural labor in the South. The experience of
this army during the heat of summer from Bowling Green,
Kentucky to Tupelo, Mississippi,
is that the white man is healthier when doing reasonable work in the open field
than at any other time. It is said an army of Negroes cannot be spared from the
fields. A sufficient number of slaves is now
administering to luxury alone to supply the place of all we need, and we
believe it would be better to half the able-bodied men off a plantation than to
take the one master mind that economically regulates its operations. Leave some
of the skill at home and take some of the muscle to fight with. It is said
slaves will not work after they are freed. We think necessity and a wise
legislation will compel them to labor for a living. It is said it will cause
terrible excitement and some disaffection from our cause. Excitement is far
preferable to the apathy which now exists, and disaffection will not be among
the fighting men. It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if to give
it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all
our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional
superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our
rights and liberties. We have now briefly proposed a plan which we believe will
save our country. It may be imperfect, but in all human probability it would
give us our independence. No objection ought to outweigh it which is not
weightier than independence. If it is worthy of being put in practice it ought
to be mooted quickly before the people and urged earnestly by every man who
believes in its efficiency. Negroes will require much training; training will
require time, and there is danger that this concession to common sense may come
too late. (4)
The responses were decidedly mixed. While members of the old Bragg
faction, like Major General Walker, thought that these ideas were dangerous and
boarded on treason, Hindman and Hardee defended the document and gave their
complete support. Others, like Johnston, Stewart, and Stevenson did not state
their opinions. Cleburne’s
staff officer, Calhoun Benham, next arose and read his rebuttal. As it turned
out, his rebuttal was not necessary: the meeting broke up with orders for the contents
of the document not to leave the room.
This gag order was not enough for Walker.
Bypassing Johnston, and in effect disobeying
orders, he demanded a copy of the document from Cleburne to forward to the president along
with letters stating the present generals’ reactions. Cleburne,
eager to bring his views before the president who had previously stated his
support of enlisting blacks, complied with Walker’s request. Hindman, not forgetting how
Cleburne had
stood by him during the shootout with the Rice brothers, did not abandon him
now. In a letter to Johnston, Hindman affirmed
his support of the document and informed the general of Walker’s actions behind his back.
As Cleburne
waited to see what would come of his document, Hardee asked him to serve as
best man at his wedding. Hardee, a widower, had met Mary Foreman of Alabama several months
ago; now, with no fighting expected until spring, Hardee was able to get a
pass. About the same time they were traveling on the Western and Atlantic
Railroad to Atlanta, Walker’s
letter, like a ticking bomb, was in route for Richmond. At Montgomery,
the two generals boarded a steamer and headed down the river for Selma where they stopped for the night at the home of Dr.
Charles Nash, now head of the Marine
Hospital.
During dinner, to which Nash invited several Navy officers, many lively
stories were exchanged among the “sunburn and powder scorched veterans who had
not been permitted to laugh in a year”. After Cleburne
told one about Hardee, Hardee turned to Nash and asked, “Doctor, can’t you give
us one on Cleburne?”
Despite Cleburne’s protests, Nash related the
embarrassing incident of his first ride on a horse in Helena. (5)
After the dinner, Cleburne
related the past campaigns to Nash, especially Ringgold Gap. Concerning the
terrible slaughter of Hooker’s men, Cleburne
said, “All war is cruel”. He also told Nash about his proposal to enlist the
slaves to fight in the ranks. Nash agreed with his idea, stating he believed
that the slaves would fight; Nash related an incident that occurred shortly
after Memphis
fell. While he was at his Mississippi
plantation, Nash saw what he believed were Federal soldiers floating down the
river in skiffs. As his house was in view of the river, Nash feared the worse
and grabbed his gun. As they approached the house, Nash’s slaves, armed with
axes, joined him and his terrified wife on the front porch telling their master
and mistress “They would defend us to the death”. As it turned out, the
soldiers were Confederates sent out to burn extra cotton before the Yankees
came. (6)
The next morning they left Nash’s house and arrived at Bleak House, the
plantation of Mary Foreman’s brother. Despite its name, the atmosphere at the
house was anything but dreary; for Cleburne,
it was a welcomed change from camp life. Paintings imported from Europe lined the stately walls and a musician played by
candlelight on a grand piano in the parlor. Among the many officers present for
the occasion, Cleburne
received the most attention from the guests who wanted to know the particulars about
Ringgold Gap. When Hardee introduced Cleburne
to the maid of honor, Susan Tarleton, he immediately knew that she was the girl
he wanted to marry. Following the wedding, the entire party traveled down the Tombigbee River
to Mobile.
Stretching his leave as far as he could, Cleburne
stayed at the Battle House hotel where he was just blocks away from the
Tarleton home on the corner of St.
Louis and Claiborne Streets.
On Saturday afternoon, January 23, a grand review of the Confederate
forces in Mobile
was held in honor of “the hero of Ringgold Gap”, a newspaper proclaimed. That
next day, Cleburne
attended church services with Sue and her family before beginning the trip back
to Tunnel Hill. (7)
“Gen’l Cleburne
returned from his leave some days ago, and was much improved by the trip, says
he had a delightful time” wrote Irving Buck from division headquarters on
February 9. “Rumor says he lost his heart with a young lady in Mobile. He has been in a heavenly mood, and
talks about another leave, already.” On the downside, Davis’ response concerning the proposal was
waiting for him as soon as he arrived at Tunnel Hill.
Deeming it to be injurious to the public service
that such subject should be mooted or even known to be entertained by persons
possessed of confidence and respect of the people, I have concluded that the
best policy under the circumstances will be to avoid all publicity, and the
Secretary of War has therefore written to General Johnston requested him to
convey to those concerned my desire that it should be kept private. If it be
kept out of the public journals its ill effects will be much lessened.
Following these final orders, Cleburne,
disappointed yet obedient, instructed Buck to destroy all copies of the
document. Although Johnston
wrote that “no doubt or mistrust is for a moment entertained of the patriotic
intents of the gallant author of the memorial”, some officers were not sure.
Military Advisor Bragg wrote gleefully of the “Emancipation project of Hardee,
Cheatham, Cleburne, and Co. It will kill them.” Wheeler, commander of the
army’s cavalry even suggested that being a foreigner, Cleburne’s loyalty to the South should be examined.
About this time, the vacancy of corps commander was filled by General John Bell
Hood. (8)
For the moment, Cleburne was concerned
about the approaching expiration date for his men’s three-year enlistments.
Federal gunboats along the Mississippi had
severed all communications that the men from Arkansas
and Texas had
with their families. “No husband could know that his wife was not homeless—no
father that his children were not starving”, wrote General Hardee. Buck wrote
his sister, “The subject of reenlistment is making some stir in this army…Would
it not be a shame to give up our cause now, after fighting as nobly as we have
done?” Urging faithfulness to the cause, Cleburne
put aside his austere commander’s role and talked to the soldiers as
individuals. Although some men from the rest of the army packed up and headed
home, every single man reenlisted in Cleburne’s
Division. “The troops are as much devoted to General Cleburne as Stonewall
Jackson’s men were to him”, wrote Irving Buck. (9)
Sources
1: Lone Star General: page 69
: Ibid
2: Narrative of Military Operations During the Civil War by Gen Joseph E. Johnston: chapter 9
page 262
: Ibid: page 264
:
Ibid: page 266
: Ibid: page 271
: Ibid: page 267
: Ibid
3: Negroes
In Our Army by Irving Buck: article found at www.civilwarhome.com/negrosinarmy.htmm
4: Cleburne’s
Memorial: found at www.texas-scv.org/cleburne.html
5: Biographical Sketches: page 111
: Ibid
6: Biographical Sketches: page 205
: Ibid: page 192
7: Pat Cleburne Confederate General: Chapter
12 page 170
8: Dear Irvie,
Dear Lucy: page 204
: Ibid
: www.texas-scv.org/cleburne.html
:
Ibid
: A Meteor Shining Brightly: Chapter 7, page 154
9: Pat
Cleburne Confederate General: chapter 12 page 171
: Dear Irvie,
Dear Lucy: page 202
: Ibid: page 204