Military Order of the Loyal Legion

of the

United States.

COMMANDERY OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

WAR PAPERS.
68

Army of the Cumberland and the Battle of Stone’s River.

prepared by Companion
Lieutenant-Colonel GILBERT C. KNIFFIN,
U. S. Volunteers,

AND READ AT THE STATED MEETING OF APRIL 3, 1907.

Army of the Cumberland and the Battle of Stone River.

The Army of the Ohio, after crowding into the space of six weeks more hard marching and fighting than fell to the lot of any other army in the United States during the summer of 1862, was, on the last of October, encamped in the vicinity of Bowling Green, Kentucky. General Bragg and Kirby Smith, turning Buell’s left flank, had invaded Kentucky, gained the rear of Buell, threatened his base at Louisville, and but for the vis inertia which always seemed to seize upon the Confederates when in sight of complete victory, would have captured Louisville. The battle of Perryville resulting in the hasty exit of the combined armies of Bragg and Smith through Cumberland Gap into East Tennessee, the deliberate sweep of Buell’s columns in their rear, the halt at Crab Orchard, and the return march towards Nashville are part of the events of an earlier chapter in the history of the rebellion. The occupation of East Tennessee by the Union Army had from the commencement of hostilities been an object dear to the great heart of President Lincoln. He had hoped for its accomplishment under General Sherman. It had been included in the instructions to General Buell, but eighteen months had passed and the Confederate flag still waved in triumph from the spire of the court-house at Knoxville. The retreat of the Confederate Army into East Tennessee in what was reported as a routed and disorganized condition had seemed like a favorable opportunity to carry out the long-cherished design of the Government. The movement of large armies across the country upon a map in the War Office, although apparently practicable, bore so little relation to actual campaigning as to have already caused the decapitation of more than one general.

The positive refusal of General Buell to march 60,000 men into a sterile and hostile country across a range of mountains in pursuit of an army of equal strength with his own, when by simply turning southward he could meet it around the western spur of the same range, although it has since been upheld by every military authority, caused his prompt removal from command of the army he had organized and led to victory. The army had been slow to believe in the incapacity of General Buell, and had recognized the wisdom of his change of front from Cumberland Gap towards Nashville, but there were causes for dissatisfaction, which, in the absence of knowledge as to the difficulties under which he labored were attributed to him. A full knowledge of all the circumstances would have transferred them to the War Department. Major-General William S. Rosecrans, the newly-appointed commander of the Army of the Cumberland, graduated at West Point July 1, 1842, as brevet second lieutenant corps of engineers. He resigned from the army April 1, 1854, and entered civil life at Cincinnati as a civil engineer and architect. His energy and capability for large undertakings, coupled with an inherent capacity for command, caused him to be selected as superintendent of a cannel coal company in Virginia and president of the Coal River Navigation Company.

The discovery of coal oil at this period at once attracted his attention, and he had embarked in its manufacture when the tocsin of war called him into the field. His first duty was as volunteer aid to General McClellan, where his military experience rendered him very efficient in the organization of troops. He became commander of Camp Chase, colonel on the staff, chief engineer of the State of Ohio, and colonel Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry, commanded later by Rutherford B. Hayes and Stanley Matthews, and was appointed brigadier-general U. S. A., May 16, 1861. After conducting the campaigns in West Virginia to a successful issue he was ordered South and assigned to command of a division in the Army of the Mississippi under General Pope. He participated creditably in the siege of Corinth, and after its evacuation, and the transfer of General Pope to the eastern army assumed command of the Army of the Mississippi and District of Corinth. His heroic defense of that post and pursuit of Van Dorn’s defeated army following closely upon his military record in West Virginia again attracted the attention of the President and pointed him out as eminently fitted to succeed General Buell. General Rosecrans ordered to proceed to Cincinnati did not specify the command to which he was to be assigned. His commission as major-general, dated September 16th, was of much later date than the commissions of Buell, Thomas, McCook, and Crittenden. General Thomas ranked him five months—McCook and Crittenden two months. On opening his orders at Cincinnati he found an autograph letter from General Halleck directing him to proceed to Louisville and relieve General Buell in command of the Army of the Ohio. The usual method has always been to issue simultaneous orders to both officers, thus affording time to the officer to be relieved in which to arrange the details of his office, but Halleck was a law unto himself, and in relieving an army officer usually did it in a way to render it equivalent to dismissal from the service. Rosecrans afterward referred to his visit to Buell’s headquarters as more like that of a constable bearing a writ for the ejectment of a tenant than as a general on his way to relieve a brother officer in command of an army. The difficulty of rank was bridged over by antedating Rosecrans’ commission to March 16th. In a subsequent interview with General Thomas, when that splendid soldier expressed the pleasure it would give him to serve under a general who had given such satisfactory evidence of fitness to command, but felt doubts as to his right to do so on account of the disparity of their rank, General Rosecrans frankly revealed the means by which his commission had been made to date from the period of his operations in Western Virginia, and that as it now stood, General Thomas need have no fears of compromising his dignity as a United States officer. The explanation was entirely satisfactory, and no question of the superior rank of the commanding general was ever raised. After a rest and visit to his family of only sixty hours, General Rosecrans proceeded to Louisville, and assumed command of the army on the 28th of October, and on the 30th joined it at Bowling Green.

Here the first interview took place between the General and his corps commanders. Major-General George H. Thomas, strong, grave, benignant, majestic in deportment, had now been with the army a year; revered by the entire army, loved by his old division, he was a man to be trusted. Major-General Thomas L. Crittenden, a son of Senator Crittenden, of Kentucky, bold, impetuous, and of knightly grace of manner, possessed of that cheerful courage which finds its best expression on the battle field, the idol of