CHAPTER XXIII.
THE BATTLE IN THE CLOUDS.
SOMERS had been greatly mystified by the singular conduct of Tippy, the scout, and quite as much so by that of De Banyan in connection with the young man. He remembered to have heard the major say, when they parted, after the eventful campaign before Richmond, that he had a son; and it now appeared that he had been in the rebel service, while his father was actively engaged on the other side.
Before the war Tippy had been the confidential friend and companion of his father to an extent to which parents seldom admit their sons. He was an only child, and between them there had been a bond of sympathy, which nothing but the total breaking up of all social relations could affect. The father had been compelled to enter the rebel army sorely against his will, and at the first opportunity had put himself on the right side. In doing so he had been separated from his family, hoping, however, to meet his wife and son again in a few months at farthest. He had been grievously disappointed in this respect, for the sweep of the Union army had not been so speedy and decided as he had anticipated; and he had been obliged, by the force of circumstances, to leave the West and go to the East.
During his absence his wife had died; and the son, inheriting the talent of his father, had taken service in the rebel ranks, where his ability as a scout was soon discovered. When he saw his father, he had no will of his own; whatever the parent was, he was. Like thousands of others who fought on the side of rebellion, he had no principle in the matter, and only went with the crowd. He was now happily restored to his devoted parent, and fully believed that whatever cause his father espoused must be the right one. The boy’s middle name was Tipton, after a Tennessee politician, who happened to be in the ascendant at the time of his birth; and from this was derived the pet appellation by which he was known among the rebels and partisans.
Somers and Tippy were immediately the best of friends; and during the day, as they rode along, the young Tennesseean asked a thousand questions about the North, about the home and the associations of his companion; and it is quite probable that he profited by the information imparted in the answers to the questions.
Before night, as De Banyan had promised, our travellers had the pleasure of reporting to “Fighting Joe,” at Bridgeport, and of receiving a hearty welcome. They were warmly commended for the work they had done among the guerillas, who were the pest of the state, the continual annoyance of the army’s communications, and a nuisance to friend and foe among the families of the region. The general conversed freely with De Banyan and Somers, and immediately assigned them to duty in their respective positions.
“Somers, my dear fellow, I greet you!” exclaimed Captain Barkwood, when they met.
“Thank you, captain,” replied Somers, warmly grasping the proffered hand of the engineer.
“You are the only volunteer I have met who was fit to be a regular.”
“Fortunately, I am one,” added Somers, explaining his position.
“I congratulate you. I hear that you have been fighting guerillas.”
“A little.”
“I am sorry you have a taste for those small squabbles.”
“I have not; I only go into them from necessity. But our fight with the guerillas was a splendid piece of strategy. I will tell you about it.”
Somers told him, and the engineer was satisfied, though he declared that he was too much of a coward to have any relish for hand-to-hand encounters.
“Well, Captain Barkwood, how is the general?” asked Somers, when the relative merits of brain and muscle had been duly discussed.
“The general! He is a diamond among precious stones,” replied Barkwood, with enthusiasm. “If he gets a chance he will knock the backbone out of the rebel army in this quarter. By the way, Somers, I remember the general when he was in Mexico.”
“Were you there?”
“I was.”
“You don’t look old enough.”
“I’m forty. I remember him at Chapultepec.”
“I was there,” added De Banyan; “but I was a private.”
“He fought like a tiger there, as he did everywhere, and went up like a rocket from second lieutenant to lieutenant colonel. He is what I call a positive man; he does his own thinking, which, unfortunately for him, perhaps, in some instances, does not agree with the thinking of others. He was with Pillow, Rains, and Ripley, who are all rebels now.”
“But the general left the army.”
“Yes, he is an active man; he couldn’t stand the piping times of peace that followed the Mexican war, and, resigning his commission, went to California, where he became a farmer. This didn’t agree very well with his constitution, and when a speck of war appeared in 1861, he hastened to Washington; not as an adventurer, mind you, but as a man who believed in the American Union. Somehow the men in authority seemed to have forgotten about his conduct in Mexico; and it may be that some of his positive opinions were remembered, and he did not readily procure service.
“Discouraged, and perhaps disgusted, with his ill success, he made up his mind to return to his farm on the Pacific. Before his intended departure he paid his respects to President Lincoln, to whom he made some comments on the battle of Bull Run, which induced the president to make him a brigadier. That was the luckiest thing for the general, and the luckiest thing for the country, that ever came out of an accident.”
“That’s so!” exclaimed De Banyan, with emphasis. “I’ve seen him in a great many fights; and I say he has no superior in the army.”
“I’m not very fond of comparisons between generals; but I can say I like him better than any other,” added Somers. “I wish generals were not so sensitive.”
“Sensitive? My dear Somers, a man can no more be a great general without being sensitive, than he can be a parson without being pious.”
“That may be; but I think that some of the military operations of the war have failed because the commanding general in charge of them was not fairly supported, owing to some of these squabbles about rank.”
“That’s true; but there’s a great difference between being sensitive, and failing to obey orders, in spirit as well as to the letter. ‘Fighting Joe’ never did and never will allow his sensitiveness to endanger for one moment the success of our arms,” said the engineer, warmly. “He would fight under a corporal rather than lose the day, any time.”
“I know that,” answered Somers; “but I can’t help feeling that if some generals had been less sensitive, our general would have been in command of a large army to-day.”
“A positive man speaks what he thinks; and I doubt not ‘Fighting Joe’ has often offended his superiors by his candid criticisms. This may have affected his position, but it cannot rob him of the glory of the past. Whatever he does, and wherever he goes, I’m with him to the end,” added the engineer.
“So am I,” said De Banyan.
“There will be something done in this department very soon,” continued Barkwood. “The heavy storms have rendered the roads almost impassable; and the provisions for the army in Chattanooga have to be conveyed in wagons about fifty miles. The first move will be to open the river and the railroad between this point and Chattanooga.”
The engineer was correct in his supposition, for a few days later General Hazen’s brigade descended the Tennessee in pontoon boats, intended for the erection of a bridge over the river at Brown’s Ferry, running the rebel batteries in the night, and reaching their destination in safety. The Confederate force under General Bragg was posted on the south side of the river, holding the heights known as Raccoon Mountain, Lookout Mountain, and Missionary Ridge. Batteries had been planted on these heights, which swept the river and the valleys; and the operation of dislodging the enemy from their strongholds was a difficult and dangerous one.
A pontoon bridge nine hundred feet in length was built on the river at Brown’s Ferry in five hours, a force having been first sent over the river, and a position captured and fortified to protect the operation. The eleventh and twelfth corps then moved out from Bridgeport, and completed the communication between that place and the pontoon bridge, thus effecting a junction with the army in Chattanooga. A steamboat, built by a company of engineers, and another captured from the enemy, conveyed provision, one above and the other below the pontoon bridge, to the beleaguered town. This vital question being settled, the place was fortified so that it could be held by a small force; and the main army then commenced the work of relieving East Tennessee from the presence of the rebels, which was fully accomplished in spite of the active movement of the enemy to prevent it.
Our volume is not a history, and we do not purpose to narrate in detail the movements of the three armies, which had been united under General Grant. The rebels were whipped in every direction, foiled and defeated in all their plans, and the Union army continued on its march to Atlanta. “Fighting Joe” bore an important part in these operations, and was conspicuous at Lookout Mountain, Resaca, and before Atlanta. He was skilful and brave, energetic and devoted in this campaign, as he had been before. He was faithful to his duty, until, on the death of General McPherson, he was compelled to ask to be relieved. With this summary of the events at the seat of war in the South, we return to Captain Somers.
The general’s command, having opened the communication with Chattanooga, marched up Lookout Valley. “Fighting Joe” was there for a purpose. The rugged steeps of the mountain bristled with rebel cannon, and his army was exposed to a sharp fire as it moved on its way. The general was in the midst of it, and assured the troops that the fire could not harm them. His conduct had the most inspiring effect upon the men.
When the head of the column approached the vicinity of the railroad bridge, near Wauhatchie, the rebel infantry opened upon it, being posted in a dense forest, where their number could not be determined. A brigade was thrown out to flank the position, upon which the enemy precipitately fled over the creek, burning the bridge behind them. The column moved on, and halted for the night in the valley.
At midnight General Geary’s division was savagely attacked, and presently the gloom of the valley was lighted up by the flame of battle; cannon and musketry blazed from the summits of the mountain, but the men fought with the most determined zeal. The general was in his saddle, and his staff were hurled away like arrows from a bow, to strengthen the weak parts of the line. A brigade was despatched to the assistance of Geary, who was hard pressed; but the attack was promptly repelled.
Somers was then sent off with an order to the second brigade to storm the heights and carry them; and he was directed to accompany the force and report progress to the general. The hill was very steep and rugged, and in many places the rocks presented the appearance of palisades. It was covered with wood and underbrush, and it would not have been an easy thing to climb it with a guide in broad daylight; but the general had sent these intrepid fellows to scale its jagged steeps in the middle of the night. It was cloudy, and the moon shed an uncertain light on the scene.
To Somers there was a savor of home in the enterprise, for the thirty-third Massachusetts was one of the two regiments which formed the advance in this perilous movement; the other was the seventy-third Ohio, both numbering only four hundred men. On dashed the intrepid soldiers, climbing up the dangerous steeps, as though all of them had been mountaineers—on, till they penetrated the clouds, while the gloom was lighted up by the glare of the sheets of flame from two thousand rebel muskets. There in the clouds, at midnight, was fought and won this remarkable battle. The crests of the hills were carried at the point of the bayonet, and the gallant thirty-third left one third of its number killed and wounded on the ground; but the victory was complete, and Captain Somers hastened to report the result to the general.