It would not have falsified history, however, if General Sherman had said, that instead of waiting for a regiment which was ice bound near Columbus, Ky., General Smith, by General Sherman's personal and positive directions, was awaiting the arrival of Warring's entire brigade of cavalry, composed of the Fourth Missouri, Second New Jersey, Seventh Indiana, Nineteenth Pennsylvania, and a battery of the Second Illinois Cavalry. Further than this, General Smith was distinctly informed by Sherman, before the departure of the latter, that it would be necessary to wait for this brigade in order to make up the requisite force with which to meet Forrest. General Sherman also assured him that his own movement on Meridian and the contemplated operations there did not of necessity depend upon a junction with the cavalry from Memphis. And this is shown to have been General Sherman's view, when he himself reached Meridian four days after the date he had fixed for his own and General Smith's arrival at that point, by the order he then issued. This was dated eight days after the time mentioned for a union of the forces there, and declares that all the objects of the expedition had been fully attained: [Special Field Orders No. 20.] HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE TENNESSEE, 1. Having fulfilled, and well, all the objects of the expedition, the troops will return to the Mississippi River to embark in another equally important movement. 2. * * The march will begin on the 20th instant, and the corps commanders will not pass Union and Decatur until they have communicated with each other by couriers across at these points. * * * 4. The march should be conducted slow; about fifteen miles per day, and in good order. There is no seeming danger, but every precaution should be taken against cavalry dashes at our trains. ** * By order of Major-General W. T. SHERMAN, From General Smith's report, it appears that Warring's brigade did not reach him until the 8th. It had marched two hundred and fifteen miles, over a country covered with snow and ice, and been obliged to cross rivers, where in some in stances it was necessary to build boats to ferry the command, and where at times the men were compelled to dismount and harness the horses to the artillery and the ammunition wagons in order to draw them through. Three days would seem scarcely enough to refit a brigade after such a march, but in that time it again started under General Smith. A vigorous campaign was then made against Forrest, and pushed as far as was prudent or possible. The delay in starting had made it impracticable to reach General Sherman at Meridian, by the time he had set for returning, and so General Smith withdrew to Memphis. As a result of his expedition, he reported between one and two million bushels of corn destroyed, two thousand bales of cotton burned, thirty miles of railroad destroyed, three thousand horses and mules, and fifteen hundred negroes brought out of the enemy's country, besides the forage and subsistence taken for his mounted force of seven thousand. General Sherman in his report of the Meridian expedition, made a few days after his return to Vicksburg, maintained that he had accomplished all he undertook, notwithstanding the delay in General Smith's movements. This portion of his report is as follows: "I inclose herewith my instructions to General Smith, with a copy of his report, and must say it is unsatisfactory. The delay in his starting to the 11th of February, when his orders contemplated his being at Meridian on the 10th, and when he knew I was marching from Vicksburg is unpardonable, and the mode and manner of his return to Memphis was not what I expected from an intended bold cavalry movement. I returned (to Canton) from Vicksburg, on the 6th inst., found all my army in, and learned that General Smith had not started from Memphis at all till the 11th of February, had only reached West Point, and turned back on the 22d, the march back to Memphis being too rapid for a good effect. * "Nevertheless, on the whole, we accomplished all I undertook." General Smith, at the time of this expedition, was Grant's chief of cavalry, and when he was temporarily placed under the orders of Sherman for the Meridian campaign, he was engaged, in conjunction with other troops, in watching and operating against Forrest's command. He made full report to General Grant of his operations under Sherman, and was commended for what he accomplished. As an evidence that General Sherman himself had lost no confidence in him, he was retained by that officer as chief-of-staff, when he succeeded Grant in command of the Military Division of the Mississippi, and was entrusted with the work of organizing the cavalry force for the Atlanta campaign, continuing active in the field during the first three months of that movement, when disabling sickness compelled him to leave the service. And yet General Sherman now writes: "General Smith never regained my confidence as a soldier." The reports on file in the War Department regarding General Smith's movement are voluminous. His instructions contain no mention of February 1st being the day absolutely fixed for his starting, as now claimed in the Memoirs, and the reasons, both for the delay, and the subsequent return to Memphis, are of such a character as to fix no stain upon his record. The Memoirs, in fixing the force with which he was to move at "about seven thousand," show that General Sherman expected General Smith to wait for Warring's brigade, since, without it, his force would only have numbered about five thousand. Instead of Forrest's strength being then estimated in Memphis at "not more than four thousand cavalry," it was believed to be, and in fact was, fully six thousand. Instead of being defeated at West Point "with an inferior force," General Smith was not defeated there at all; and further, he moved back from that place partly because the rebel cavalry force, which Sherman had not kept employed in his own front, was moving to join Forrest against him. But aside from this expected reënforcement of the enemy the various reports disclose abundant reason for turning back from West Point. The force in General Smith's front was fully equal to his own, and was posted behind a river which became impassable when so held. The enemy's left was covered by a swamp and river, and a movement in that direction was impracticable, while his right was protected by the Tom-. His bigbee River which General Smith could not cross. command was encumbered with a large body of negroes that he had gathered up in pursuance of orders and was in honor bound to protect. A rebel brigade was moving to the rear to occupy a strong point in his line of retreat. At this time General Sherman was retiring from Meridian, and had it been possible for General Smith to advance beyond West Point it would have been a move upon Polk's whole army, resulting in utter defeat. General Smith penetrated further into the enemy's territory than General Sherman, and, in proportion to the strength of his command, inflicted heavier losses upon the enemy than Sherman. CHAPTER VIII. RESACA THE FAILURE THERE ATTRIBUTED TO MCPHERSON. It is ungenerous in General Sherman to cast imputations upon General McPherson, the commander of the Army of the Tennessee, since this General and his army, often at sore cost, saved Sherman from himself, and won laurels for him to wear. It is well known among many who participated in it, that the prominent officers of the three armies which began the Atlanta campaign, considered its opening moves at Dalton and Resaca as grave and needless failures. The feeling was that Sherman, with his one hundred thousand men, should have brought Johnston's forty-five thousand to decisive battle in front of Resaca. General Sherman, in his book, labors to show first, that at the outset he fully intended to do this; and second, that the failure of his plan resulted from McPherson's timidity at a moment when this officer had an opportunity to insure brilliant success-such as does not occur twice in a single life. As will be remembered, the enemy held a strongly fortified position in front of Dalton. The road from Chattanooga passed from the west through a deep gorge called Buzzard's Roost, in the mountain range which separated the two armies. Its sides were precipitous, finally taking the form of palisades. The range was Rocky Face. The gorge was partly commanded from the Union side by Tunnel Hill. About fifteen miles south, Snake Creek Gap, which had been almost entirely neglected by the enemy, opened through the ridge midway upon the roads leading from Dalton to Resaca. |