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 Copyright

Copyright © 2018 by Adam Zamoyski

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Basic Books
Hachette Book Group
1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104
www.basicbooks.com
First Edition: October 2018
First published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2018

Published by Basic Books, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Zamoyski, Adam, author.
Title: Napoleon: a life / Adam Zamoyski.
Description: First edition. | New York: Basic Books, 2018. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018015891| ISBN 9780465055937 (hardcover) |
ISBN 9781541644557 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769–1821. |
France—Kings and rulers—Biography. | France. Armâee—History—
Napoleonic Wars, 1800–1815. | Napoleonic Wars, 1800–1815.
Classification: LCC DC203 .Z36 2018 | DDC 94405092 [B]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018015891

ISBNs: 978-0-465-05593-7 (hardcover), 978-1-5416-4455-7 (ebook)

E3-20180827-JV-NF
 Contents

Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
List of Maps
Preface

1 A Reluctant Messiah
2 Insular Dreams
3 Boy Soldier
4 Freedom
5 Corsica
6 France or Corsica
7 The Jacobin
8 Adolescent Loves
9 General Vendémiaire
10 Italy
11 Lodi
12 Victory and Legend
13 Master of Italy
14 Eastern Promise
15 Egypt
16 Plague
17 The Saviour
18 Fog
19 The Consul
20 Consolidation
21 Marengo
22 Caesar
23 Peace
24 The Liberator of Europe
25 His Consular Majesty
26 Toward Empire
27 Napoleon I
28 Austerlitz
29 Emperor of the West
30 Master of Europe
31 The Sun Emperor
32 The Emperor of the East
33 The Cost of Power
34 Apotheosis
35 Apogee
36 Blinding Power
37 The Rubicon
38 Nemesis
39 Hollow Victories
40 Last Chance
41 The Wounded Lion
42 Rejection
43 The Outlaw
44 A Crown of Thorns

Photos
About the Author
Also by Adam Zamoyski
Notes
Bibliography
Illustration Credits
Index
 In memory

of

GILLON AITKEN
 Maps

Europe in 1792
Toulon
The Italian Theatre
Montenotte
Lodi
The Pursuit
Castiglione
Würmser Outmanoeuvred
Arcole
Rivoli
The March on Vienna
The Settlement of Campo Formio
Egypt
Europe in 1800
Marengo
Ulm
Austerlitz
The Campaigns of 1806–7
Europe in 1808
Aspern–Essling
Wagram
Europe in 1812
The Invasion of Russia
Borodino
The Berezina
The Saxon Campaign 1813
The Defence of France 1814
The Waterloo Campaign 1815
 Preface

A POLISH HOME, English schools, and holidays with French cousins

exposed me from an early age to violently conflicting visions of
Napoleon—as godlike genius, Romantic avatar, evil monster, or just
nasty little dictator. In this crossfire of fantasy and prejudice I
developed an empathy with each of these views without being able
to agree with any of them.
Napoleon was a man, and while I understand how others have
done, I can see nothing superhuman about him. Although he did
exhibit some extraordinary qualities, he was in many ways a very
ordinary man. I find it difficult to credit genius to someone who, for
all his many triumphs, presided over the worst (and entirely self-
inflicted) disaster in military history and single-handedly destroyed
the great enterprise he and others had toiled so hard to construct.
He was undoubtedly a brilliant tactician, as one would expect of a
clever operator from a small-town background. But he was no
strategist, as his miserable end attests.
Nor was Napoleon an evil monster. He could be as selfish and
violent as the next man, but there is no evidence of him wishing to
inflict suffering gratuitously. His motives were on the whole
praiseworthy, and his ambition no greater than that of
contemporaries such as Alexander I of Russia, Wellington, Nelson,
Metternich, Blücher, Bernadotte, and many more. What made his
ambition so exceptional was the scope it was accorded by
circumstance.
On hearing the news of his death, the Austrian dramatist Franz
Grillparzer wrote a poem on the subject. He had been a student in
Vienna when Napoleon bombarded the city in 1809, so he had no
reason to like him, but in the poem he admits that while he cannot
love him, he cannot bring himself to hate him; according to
Grillparzer, Napoleon was but the visible symptom of the sickness of
the times, and as such bore the blame for the sins of all. There is
much truth in this view.1
In the half-century before Napoleon came to power, a titanic
struggle for dominion saw the British acquire Canada, large swathes
of India, and a string of colonies and aspire to lay down the law at
sea; Austria grab provinces in Italy and Poland; Prussia increase in
size by two-thirds; and Russia push her frontier 600 kilometres into
Europe and occupy large areas of Central Asia, Siberia, and Alaska,
laying claims as far afield as California. Yet George III, Maria
Theresa, Frederick William II, and Catherine II are not generally
accused of being megalomaniac monsters and compulsive
warmongers.
Napoleon is frequently condemned for his invasion of Egypt, while
the British occupation which followed, designed to guarantee
colonial monopoly over India, is not. He is regularly blamed for re-
establishing slavery in Martinique, while Britain applied it in its
colonies for a further thirty years, and every other colonial power for
several decades after that. His use of police surveillance and
censorship is also regularly reproved, even though every other state
in Europe emulated him, with varying degrees of discretion or
hypocrisy.
The tone was set by the victors of 1815, who arrogated the role
of defenders of a supposedly righteous social order against evil, and
writing on Napoleon has been bedevilled ever since by a moral
dimension, which has entailed an imperative to slander or glorify.
Beginning with Stendhal, who claimed he could only write of
Napoleon in religious terms, and no doubt inspired by Goethe, who
saw his life as ‘that of a demi-god’, French and other European
historians have struggled to keep the numinous out of their work,
and even today it is tinged by a sense of awe. Until very recently,
Anglo-Saxon historians have shown reluctance to allow an
understanding of the spirit of the times to help them see Napoleon
as anything other than an alien monster. Rival national mythologies
have added layers of prejudice which many find hard to overcome.2
Napoleon was in every sense the product of his times; he was in
many ways the embodiment of his epoch. If one wishes to gain an
understanding of him and what he was about, one has to place him
in context. This requires ruthless jettisoning of received opinion and
nationalist prejudice and dispassionate examination of what the
seismic conditions of his times threatened and offered.
In the 1790s Napoleon entered a world at war, and one in which
the very basis of human society was being questioned. It was a
struggle for supremacy and survival in which every state on the
Continent acted out of self-interest, breaking treaties and betraying
allies shamelessly. Monarchs, statesmen, and commanders on all
sides displayed similar levels of fearful aggression, greed,
callousness, and brutality. To ascribe to any of the states involved a
morally superior role is ahistorical humbug, and to condemn the lust
for power is to deny human nature and political necessity.
For Aristotle power was, along with wealth and friendship, one of
the essential components of individual happiness. For Hobbes, the
urge to acquire it was not only innate but beneficent, as it led men
to dominate and therefore organise communities, and no social
organisation of any form could exist without the power of one or
more individuals to order others.
Napoleon did not start the war that broke out in 1792 when he
was a mere lieutenant and continued, with one brief interruption,
until 1814. Which side was responsible for the outbreak and for the
continuing hostilities is fruitlessly debatable, since responsibility
cannot be laid squarely on one side or the other. The fighting cost
lives, for which responsibility is often heaped on Napoleon, which is
absurd, as all the belligerents must share the blame. And he was not
as profligate with the lives of his own soldiers as some.
French losses in the seven years of revolutionary government
(1792–99) are estimated at four to five hundred thousand; those
during the fifteen years of Napoleon’s rule are estimated at just
under twice as high, at eight to nine hundred thousand. Given that
these figures include not only dead, wounded, and sick but also
those reported as missing, whose numbers went up dramatically as
his ventures took the armies further afield, it is clear that battle
losses were lower under Napoleon than during the revolutionary
period—despite the increasing use of heavy artillery and the greater
size of the armies. The majority of those classed as missing were
deserters who either drifted back home or settled in other countries.
This is not to diminish the suffering or the trauma of the war, but to
put it in perspective.3

MY AIM IN THIS BOOK is not to justify or condemn, but to piece together

the life of the man born Napoleone Buonaparte, and to examine how
he became ‘Napoleon’ and achieved what he did, and how it came
about that he undid it.
In order to do so I have concentrated on verifiable primary
sources, treating with caution the memoirs of those such as
Bourrienne, Fouché, Barras, and others who wrote principally to
justify themselves or to tailor their own image, and have avoided
using as evidence those of the duchesse d’Abrantès, which were
written years after the events by her lover, the novelist Balzac. I also
ignore the various anecdotes regarding Napoleon’s birth and
childhood, believing that it is immaterial as well as unprovable that
he cried or not when he was born, that he liked playing with swords
and drums as a child, had a childhood crush on some little girl, or
that a comet was sighted at his birth and death. There are quite
enough solid facts to deal with.
I have devoted more space in relative terms to Napoleon’s
formative years than to his time in power, as I believe they hold the
key to understanding his extraordinary trajectory. As I consider the
military aspects only insofar as they produced an effect, on him and
his career or the international situation, the reader will find my
coverage very uneven. I give prominence to the first Italian
campaign because it demonstrates the ways in which Napoleon was
superior to his enemies and colleagues, and because it turned him
into an exceptional being, in both his own eyes and those of others.
Subsequent battles are of interest primarily for the use he made of
them, while the Russian campaign is seminal to his decline and
reveals the confusion in his mind which led to his political suicide. To
those who would like to learn more about the battles, I would
recommend Andrew Roberts’s masterful Napoleon the Great. The
battle maps in the text are similarly spare and do not pretend to
accuracy; they are designed to illustrate the essence of the action.
The subject is so vast that anyone attempting a life of Napoleon
must necessarily rely on the work of many who have trawled
through archives and on published sources. I feel hugely indebted to
all those involved in the Fondation Napoléon’s new edition of
Napoleon’s correspondence. I also owe a great deal to the work
done over the past two decades by French historians in debunking
the myths that have gained the status of truth and excising the
carbuncles that have overgrown the verifiable facts during the past
two centuries. Thierry Lentz and Jean Tulard stand out in this
respect, but Pierre Branda, Jean Defranceschi, Patrice Gueniffey,
Annie Jourdan, Aurélien Lignereux, and Michel Vergé-Franceschi
have also helped to blow away cobwebs and enlighten. Among
Anglo-Saxon historians, Philip Dwyer has my gratitude for his brilliant
work on Napoleon as propagandist, and Munro Price for his
invaluable archival research on the last phase of his reign. The work
of Michael Broers and Steven Englund is also noteworthy.
I owe a debt of thanks to Olivier Varlan for bibliographic
guidance, and particularly for having let me see Caulaincourt’s
manuscript on the Prussian and Russian campaigns of 1806–07; to
Vincenz Hoppe for seeking out sources in Germany; to Hubert
Czyżewski for assisting me in unearthing obscure sources in Polish
libraries; to Laetitia Oppenheim for doing the same for me in France;
to Carlo De Luca for alerting me to the existence of the diary of
Giuseppe Mallardi; and to Angelika von Hase for helping me with
German sources. I also owe thanks to Shervie Price for reading the
typescript, and to the incomparable Robert Lacey for his sensitive
editing.
Although at times I felt like cursing him, I would like to thank
Detlef Felken for his implicit faith in suggesting I write this book, and
Clare Alexander and Arabella Pike for their support. Finally, I must
thank my wife, Emma, for putting up with me and encouraging me
throughout what has been a challenging task.

Adam Zamoyski
 1

A Reluctant Messiah

AT NOON ON 10 December 1797 a thunderous discharge from a

battery of guns echoed across Paris, opening yet another of the
many grandiose festivals for which the French Revolution was so
notable.
Although the day was cold and grey, crowds had been gathering
around the Luxembourg Palace, the seat of the Executive Directory
which governed France, and according to the Prussian diplomat
Daniel von Sandoz-Rollin, ‘never had the cheering sounded more
enthusiastic’. People lined the streets leading up to the palace in the
hope of catching a glimpse of the hero of the day. But his reticence
defeated them. At around ten o’clock that morning he had left his
modest house on the rue Chantereine with one of the Directors who
had come to fetch him in a cab. As it trundled through the streets,
followed by several officers on horseback, he sat well back, seeming
in the words of one English witness ‘to shrink from those
acclamations which were then the voluntary offering of the heart’.1
They were indeed heartfelt. The people of France were tired after
eight years of revolution and political struggle marked by violent
lurches to the right or the left. They were sick of the war which had
lasted for more than five years and which the Directory seemed
unable to end. The man they were cheering, a twenty-eight-year-old
general by the name of Bonaparte, had won a string of victories in
Italy against France’s principal enemy, Austria, and forced her
emperor to come to terms. The relief felt at the prospect of peace
and the political stability it was hoped would ensue was
accompanied by a subliminal sense of deliverance.
The Revolution which began in 1789 had unleashed boundless
hopes of a new era in human affairs. These had been whipped up
and manipulated by successive political leaders in a self-perpetuating
power struggle, and people longed for someone who could put an
end to it. They had read the bulletins recounting this general’s deeds
and his proclamations to the people of Italy, which contrasted
sharply with the utterances of those ruling France. Many believed, or
just hoped, that the longed-for man had come. The sense of
exaltation engendered by the Revolution had been kept alive by
overblown festivals, and this one was, according to one witness, as
‘magnifique’ as any.2
The great court of the Luxembourg Palace had been transformed
for the occasion. A dais had been erected opposite the entrance, on
which stood the indispensable ‘altar of the fatherland’ surmounted
by three statues, representing Liberty, Equality, and Peace. These
were flanked by panoplies of enemy standards captured during the
recent campaign, beneath which were placed seats for the five
members of the Directory, one for its secretary-general, and more
below them for the ministers. Beneath were places for the diplomatic
corps, and to either side stretched a great amphitheatre for the
members of the two legislative chambers and for the 1,200-strong
choir of the conservatoire. The courtyard was decked with tricolour
flags and covered by an awning, turning it into a monumental tent.3
As the last echoes of the gun salute died away, the Directors
emerged from a chamber in the depths of the palace, dressed in
their ‘grand costume’. Designed by the painter Jacques-Louis David,
this consisted of a blue velvet tunic heavily embroidered with gold
thread and girded with a gold-tasselled white silk sash, white
breeches and stockings, and shoes with blue bows. It was given a
supposedly classical look by a voluminous red cloak with a white lace
collar, a ‘Roman’ sword on a richly embroidered baldric, and a black
felt hat adorned by a blue-white-red tricolour of three ostrich
feathers.
The Directors took their place at the end of a cortège led by the
commissioners of police, followed by magistrates, civil servants, the
judiciary, teachers, members of the Institute of Arts and Sciences,
officers, officials, the diplomatic representatives of foreign powers,
and the ministers of the Directory. It was preceded by a band
playing ‘the airs beloved of the French Republic’.4
The cortège snaked its way through the corridors of the palace
and out into the courtyard, the various bodies taking their appointed
seats. The members of the legislative chambers had already taken
theirs. They wore costumes similar to that of the Directors, the
‘Roman’ look in their case sitting uneasily with their four-cornered
caps, which were David’s homage to the heroes of the Polish
revolution of 1794.
Having taken their seats, the Directors despatched an official to
usher in the principal actors of the day’s festivities. The airs beloved
of the French Republic had been superseded by a symphony
performed by the orchestra of the Conservatoire, but this was rudely
interrupted by shouts of ‘Vive Bonaparte!’, ‘Vive la Nation!’, ‘Vive le
libérateur de l’Italie!’, and ‘Vive le pacificateur du continent!’ as a
group of men entered the courtyard.
First came the ministers of war and foreign relations in their black
ceremonial costumes. They were followed by a diminutive, gaunt
figure in uniform, his lank hair dressed in the already unfashionable
‘dog’s ears’ flopping on either side of his face. His gauche
movements ‘charmed every heart’, according to one onlooker. He
was accompanied by three aides-de-camp, ‘all taller than him, but
almost bowed by the respect they showed him’. There was a
religious silence as the group entered the courtyard. Everyone
present stood and removed their hats. Then the cheering broke out
again. ‘The present elite of France applauded the victorious general,
for he was the hope of everyone: republicans, royalists, all saw their
present and future salvation in the support of his powerful arm.’ The
dazzling military victories and diplomatic triumph he had achieved
contrasted so strikingly with his puny stature, dishevelled
appearance, and unassuming manner that it was difficult not to
believe he was inspired and guided by some higher power. The
philosopher Wilhelm von Humboldt was so impressed when he saw
him, he thought he was contemplating an ideal of modern
humanity.5
When the group reached the foot of the altar of the fatherland,
the orchestra and choir of the Conservatoire struck up a ‘Hymn to
Liberty’ composed by François-Joseph Gossec to the tune of the
Catholic Eucharistic hymn O Salutaris Hostia, and the crowd joined in
an emotionally charged rendition of what the official account of the
proceedings described as ‘this religious couplet’. The Directors and
assembled dignitaries took their seats, with the exception of the
general himself. ‘I saw him decline placing himself in the chair of
state which had been prepared for him, and seem as if he wished to
escape from the general bursts of applause,’ recalled the English
lady, who was full of admiration for the ‘modesty in his demeanour’.
He had in fact requested that the ceremony be cancelled when he
heard what was in store. But there was no escape.6
The Republic’s minister for foreign relations, Charles-Maurice de
Talleyrand, limped forward in his orthopaedic shoe, his ceremonial
sword and the plumes in his hat performing curious motions as he
went. The President of the Directory had chosen him rather than the
minister of war to present the reluctant hero. ‘It is not the general, it
is the peacemaker, and above all the citizen that you must single out
to praise here,’ he had written to Talleyrand. ‘My colleagues are
terrified, not without reason, of military glory.’ This was true.7
‘No government has ever been so universally despised,’ an
informant in France had written to his masters in Vienna only a
couple of weeks before, assuring them that the first general with the
courage to raise the standard of revolt would have half of the nation
behind him. Many in Paris, at both ends of the political spectrum,
were expecting General Bonaparte to make such a move, and in the
words of one observer, ‘everyone seemed to be watching each
other’. According to another, there were many present who would
happily have strangled him.8
The forty-three-year-old ex-aristocrat and former bishop
Talleyrand knew all this. He was used to shrouding his feelings with
an impassive countenance, but his upturned nose and thin lips,
curling up on the left-hand side in a way suggesting wry
amusement, were well fitted to the speech he now delivered.
‘Citizen Directors,’ he began, ‘I have the honour to present to the
executive Directory citizen Bonaparte, who comes bearing the
ratification of the treaty of peace concluded with the emperor.’ While
reminding those present that the peace was only the crowning glory
of ‘innumerable marvels’ on the battlefield, he reassured the
shrinking general that he would not dwell on his military
achievements, leaving that to posterity, secure in the knowledge that
the hero himself viewed them not as his own, but as those of France
and the Revolution. ‘Thus, all Frenchmen have been victorious
through Bonaparte; thus his glory is the property of all; thus there is
no republican who cannot claim his part of it.’ The general’s
extraordinary talents, which Talleyrand briefly ran through, were, he
admitted, innate to him, but they were also in large measure the
fruit of his ‘insatiable love of the fatherland and of humanity’. But it
was his modesty, the fact that he seemed to ‘apologise for his own
glory’, his extraordinary taste for simplicity, worthy of the heroes of
classical antiquity, his love of the abstract sciences, his literary
passion for ‘that sublime Ossian’ and ‘his profound contempt for
show, luxury, ostentation, those paltry ambitions of common souls’
that were so striking, indeed alarming: ‘Oh! far from fearing what
some would call his ambition, I feel that we will one day have to beg
him to give up the comforts of his studious retreat.’ The general’s
countless civic virtues were almost a burden to him: ‘All France will
be free: it may be that he will never be, that is his destiny.’9
When the minister had concluded, the victim of destiny presented
the ratified copy of the peace treaty to the Directors, and then
addressed the assembly ‘with a kind of feigned nonchalance, as
though he were trying to intimate that he little liked the regime
under which he was called to serve’, in the words of one observer.
According to another, he spoke ‘like a man who knows his worth’.10
In a few clipped sentences, delivered in an atrocious foreign
accent, he attributed his victories to the French nation, which
through the Revolution had abolished eighteen centuries of bigotry
and tyranny, established representative government, and roused the
other two great nations of Europe, the Germans and Italians,
enabling them to embrace the ‘spirit of liberty’. He concluded,
somewhat bluntly, that the whole of Europe would be truly free and
at peace ‘when the happiness of the French people will be based on
the best organic laws’.11
The response of the Directory to this equivocal statement was
delivered by its president, Paul François Barras, a forty-two-year-old
minor nobleman from Provence with a fine figure and what one
contemporary described as the swagger of a fencing-master. He
began with the usual flowery glorification of ‘the sublime revolution
of the French nation’ before moving on to vaporous praise of the
‘peacemaker of the continent’, whom he likened to Socrates and
hailed as the liberator of the people of Italy. General Bonaparte had
rivalled Caesar, but unlike other victorious generals, he was a man of
peace: ‘at the first word of a proposal of peace, you halted your
triumphant progress, you laid down the sword with which the
fatherland had armed you, and preferred to take up the olive branch
of peace!’ Bonaparte was living proof ‘that one can give up the
pursuit of victory without relinquishing greatness’.12
The address meandered off into a diatribe against those ‘vile
Carthaginians’ (the British) who were the last obstacle standing in
the way of a general peace which the new Rome (France) was
striving to bestow on the Continent. Barras concluded by exhorting
the general, ‘the liberator to whom outraged humanity calls out with
plaintive appeals’, to lead an army across the Channel, whose waters
would be proud to carry him and his men: ‘As soon as the tricolour
standard is unfurled on its bloodied shores, a unanimous cry of
benediction will greet your presence; and, seeing the dawn of
approaching happiness, that generous nation will hail you as
liberators who come not to fight and enslave it, but to put an end to
its sufferings.’13
Barras then stepped forward with extended arms and in the name
of the French nation embraced the general in a ‘fraternal accolade’.
The other Directors did likewise, followed by the ministers and other
dignitaries, after which the general was allowed to step down from
the altar of the fatherland and take his seat. The choir intoned a
hymn to peace written for the occasion by the revolutionary bard
Marie-Joseph Chénier, set to music by Étienne Méhul.
The minister for war, General Barthélémy Scherer, a forty-nine-
year-old veteran of several campaigns, then presented to the
Directory two of Bonaparte’s aides bearing a huge white standard on
which the triumphs of the Army of Italy were embroidered in gold
thread. These included the capture of 150,000 prisoners, 170 flags,
and over a thousand pieces of artillery, as well as some fifty ships;
the conclusion of a number of armistices and treaties with various
Italian states; the liberation of the people of most of northern Italy;
and the acquisition for France of masterpieces by Michelangelo,
Guercino, Titian, Veronese, Correggio, Caracci, Raphael, and da Vinci
and other works of art. Scherer praised the soldiers of the Army of
Italy and particularly their commander, who had ‘married the
audacity of Achilles to the wisdom of Nestor’.14
The guns thundered as Barras received the standard from the
hands of the two officers, and in another interminable address, he
returned to his anti-British theme. ‘May the palace of St. James
crumble! The Fatherland wishes it, humanity demands it, vengeance
commands it.’ After the two warriors had received the ‘fraternal
accolade’ of the Directors and ministers, the ceremony closed with a
rendition of the rousing revolutionary war hymn Le Chant du Départ,
following which the Directors exited as they had come, and
Bonaparte left, cheered by the multitude gathered outside, greatly
relieved that it was all over.15
For all his apparent nonchalance, he had been treading warily
throughout. The Directory had not welcomed the coming of peace.
The war had paid for its armies and bolstered its finances, while the
victories had deflected criticism of its domestic shortcomings. More
important, war kept the army occupied and ambitious generals away
from Paris. This peace had been made by Bonaparte in total
disregard of the Directory’s instructions, and it was no secret that
the Directors had been furious when they were presented with the
draft treaty. A few days after receiving it, they had nominated
Bonaparte commander of the Army of England, not because they
believed in the possibility of a successful invasion, but because they
wanted him away from Paris and committed to a venture which
would surely undermine his reputation. Their principal preoccupation
now was to get him away from Paris, where he was a natural focus
for their enemies.16
The day’s event had been a politically charged performance in
which, as Bonaparte’s secretary put it, ‘everyone acted out as best
they could this scene from a sentimental comedy’. But it was a
dangerous one; according to one well-informed observer, ‘it was one
of those occasions when one imprudent word, one gesture out of
place can decide the future of a great man’. As Sandoz-Rollin pointed
out, Paris could easily have become the general’s ‘tomb’.17
The hero of the day was well aware of this. The ceremony was
followed by illuminations ‘worthy of the majesty of the people’ and a
banquet given in his honour by the minister of the interior, in the
course of which no fewer than twelve toasts were raised, each
followed by a three-gun salute and an appropriate burst of song
from the choir of the Conservatoire. Closely guarded by his aides,
the general did not touch a morsel of food or drink a thing, for fear
of being poisoned.18
It was not only the Directors who wished him ill. The royalists
who longed for a return of Bourbon rule hated him as a ruthless
defender of the Republic. The extreme revolutionaries, the Jacobins
who had been ousted from power, feared he might be scheming to
restore the monarchy. They denounced the treaty he had signed as
‘an abominable betrayal’ of the Republic’s values and referred to him
as a ‘little Caesar’ about to stage a coup and seize power.19
 Such thoughts were not far from the general’s mind. But he hid
them as he assessed the possibilities, playing to perfection the part
of a latter-day Cincinnatus. He refused the offer of the Directory to
place a guard of honour outside his door, he avoided public events
and kept a low profile, wearing civilian dress when he went out. ‘His
behaviour continues to upset all the extravagant calculations and
perfidious adulation of certain people,’ reported the Journal des
hommes libres approvingly. Sandoz-Rollin assured his masters in
Berlin that there was nothing which might lead one to suspect
Bonaparte of meaning to take power. ‘The health of this general is
weak, his chest is in a very poor state,’ he wrote, ‘his taste for
literature and philosophy and his need of rest as well as to silence
the envious will lead him to live a quiet life among friends.…’20
One man was not fooled. For all his cynicism, Talleyrand was
impressed, and sensed power. ‘What a man this Bonaparte,’ he had
written to a friend a few weeks before. ‘He has not finished his
twenty-eighth year: and he is crowned with all the glories. Those of
war and those of peace, those of moderation, those of generosity.
He has everything.’21
 2

Insular Dreams

THE MAN WHO had everything was born into a family of little
consequence in one of the poorest places in Europe, the island of
Corsica. It was also one of the most idiosyncratic, having never been
an independent political unit and yet never been fully a province or
colony of another state. It had always been a world of its own.
In the late Middle Ages, the Republic of Genoa established bases
at the anchorages of Bastia on the northeastern coast and Ajaccio in
the southwest to protect its shipping lanes and deny their use to
others. It garrisoned these with soldiers, mostly impoverished nobles
from the Italian mainland, and gradually extended its rule inland. But
the mountainous interior held little economic interest, and although
they penetrated it in order to put down insurgencies and exact what
contributions they could, the Genoese found it impossible to control
its feral denizens and largely left it alone, not even bothering to map
it.
The indigenous population preserved its traditional ways,
subsisting on a diet of chestnuts (from which even the local bread
was made), cheese, onions, fruit, and the occasional piece of goat or
pork, washed down with local wine. They dressed in homespun
brown cloth and spoke their own Italian patois. They were in
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 CHAPTER VI.
In the evening of April 6 a few of Gen. Buell’s troops had arrived and
were placed in position. During the night the boats brought the
balance of Buell’s army across the Tennessee River and they were
in line of battle ere the break of day.
Volumes have been written about the battle of Shiloh. Some think
Buell’s army saved us. Of course, they helped to win the second
day’s battle; still there is nothing to prove that Gen. Grant’s army
would not have won without their assistance on the next day.
Let me quote what I wrote over fifty years ago, when it was fresh in
my mind:
“Some think it was Buell’s army that saved the army of Gen. Grant
from total destruction. I think otherwise, and my reason is this: we
had been driven back so near the river that our lines were
concentrated as before they were scattered. During the night Gen.
Grant and his aides had perfected their line of battle, and Gen. Lew
Wallace’s division had arrived from Crump’s Landing, and every man
left in the line knew that to retreat another foot meant total
annihilation, and the words: ‘We must whip them in the morning,’
were upon every man’s lips.”
The enemy was badly hurt, and Gen. Grant knew it and felt confident
that victory must be ours on the morrow.
The morning light had scarcely come on the 7th of April when the
roar of artillery announced the opening of the second day’s battle.
The command, “Forward,” was given and the entire line moved
forward. We were the aggressors today, and made the first attack.
Fighting continued steadily, the enemy yielding every foot with great
reluctance, stubbornly holding their ground, until 12 o’clock, when a
general charge was made, and the tide of battle was turned in favor
of the Union forces. During this charge, Will fell to the ground,
thinking he was shot through the leg, for it hurt so badly he couldn’t
stand up; he pulled up his trousers to see where the minie-ball had
struck him, to find that the ball had only grazed his shinbone, cutting
a nice clean hole through his pants, but not bringing a drop of blood.
Will was disgusted, that he should fall out with just a bruised
shinbone, and jumping up he went limping after his company.
By 3 o’clock Gen. Beauregard, who was now in command of the
Confederate forces, gave the order for a retreat. They kept up a fight
to cover their retreat until night, but when darkness came we were in
possession of our old camps, where we bivouacked, filled as they
were with the dead of both armies. We had no difficulty in sleeping
well, even though the silent dead lay all about us. The dead do not
disturb us; it is the living we should be afraid of. We built fires and
cooked our frugal meal, and, after eating, we gathered ’round the
camp fire and recounted the deeds of valor done during the great
battle, speaking kind words of our brave comrades who had fallen.
A few Sibley tents, torn and riddled by shot and shell, were all we
had left. I lost my shirts, blankets, letters from home, my testament
(mother’s gift) and a picture of the “girl I left behind me.” I was more
indignant over the loss of my girl’s picture then I was over the other
articles.
On Tuesday I was detailed with others to bury the dead lying within
our camp and a distance of two hundred yards in advance. I had
charge of digging the grave, if a trench over sixty feet long and four
feet deep, can be called a grave.
The weather was hot, and most of the dead had been killed early
Sunday morning, and dissolution had already commenced. The
soldiers gathered the bodies up and placed them in wagons, hauling
them near to the trench, and piling them up like cord wood.
We were furnished with plenty of whiskey, and the boys believed that
it would have been impossible to have performed the job without it.
When the grave was ready, we placed the bodies therein, two deep;
the father, brother, husband and lover, all to lie till Gabriel’s trumpet
shall sound. All the monument reared to those brave men was a
board, nailed to a tree at the head of the trench, upon which I cut
with my pocket knife, the words: “125 rebels.”
We buried our Union boys in a separate trench, and on another
board were these words: “35 Union.” Many of our men had been
taken away and buried separately by their comrades. It was night
when we finished the task, some of the squad, “half seas over” with
liquor, but they could not be blamed, for it was a hard job. The next
day we burned the dead horses and mules.
A few words about the great battle of Shiloh, as an old veteran views
it, as well as some words deduced from history.
It has often been told that the enemy surprised us at Shiloh; that the
men were asleep in their tents and were even bayoneted there. This
most certainly is erroneous. The Confederate officers report that
early Sunday morning, while they were planning the attack, their
discussion was abruptly brought to an end by the Union out posts
commencing an attack on them.
Our soldiers were not surprised in the sense of being taken off their
guard.
It was a surprise in the sense, that Gen. Grant and his officers did
not expect an attack in force by the enemy, or if they did, they made
a great mistake in not being prepared. The fact remains, we were not
ready to receive the enemy; not a shovelfull of earth had been
thrown up for protection, and the several divisions were scattered so
as not to form a continuous battle line. If mistake it was on the part of
Gen. Grant, he profited by it, for such a thing did not happen ever
afterward. That the first day’s battle of Shiloh was a stubborn and
desperate battle cannot be denied. Badeau, in his military history of
Gen. Grant, says: “For several hours of the first day there was as
desperate fighting as was ever seen on the American Continent, and
that, in proportion to the number engaged, equaled any contest
during the rebellion.”
Gen. W. T. Sherman said: “I never saw such terrible fighting
afterward.”
Gen. Grant has said: “Shiloh was the severest battle fought in the
west during the war, and but few in the east equaled it for hard,
determined fighting.” Again he says in his Memoirs, speaking of
Shiloh: “I saw an open field the second day, over which the
Confederates had made repeated charges, so covered with dead
that it would have been possible to walk across the clearing in any
direction, stepping on dead bodies without the foot touching the
ground.”
Gen. McClernand and his division have never received their just
meed of praise for his and their part in the battle of Shiloh.
Gen. Grant in his later life says this: “The heaviest loss sustained by
the enemy was in front of Sherman’s and McClernand’s divisions.”
The official records show that on April 5, 1862, Gen. Grant had
39,830 men and officers for the first day’s battle, and Gen. Johnston
of the Confederates had 43,968 when we started the battle of Shiloh.
The loss of the Confederates was 24⅓ per cent; the loss of Grant’s
five divisions present for duty on Sunday was 26¾ per cent. The loss
of the Army of the Tennessee under Grant at Shiloh was 10,944; the
loss of the Army of the Ohio under Buell was 2,103. Only a few
regiments of Buell’s army got into action late in the evening of the
first day. Total Union loss 13,047, but this includes 2,314 Union
prisoners of Gens. Prentiss’ and Wallace’s divisions; the loss of the
Confederates was 10,699.
I remember no amusing incidents during the battle, save that of one
of my company, who was shot through the mouth in such a way as to
knock out all of his front teeth. He was a German, who spoke English
brokenly, and swore like a trooper; he would spit blood and then
curse the enemy with great vehemence, and loading his gun and
firing, would exclaim: “D— ’em, dey tinks dey vill spile me so I can’t
eat hard tack, d— ’em, I’ll show dem!” And so he fought while his
comrades cheered him on.
It has been said that war is grand and heroic; that fighting is a
glorious thing; so it is to read about, but the veterans of fifty years
ago have seen war; they know what a horrible thing it is, and I
believe that every old veteran who has stood in the battle front, has it
in his heart to say: “God grant that wars may cease, and that
universal peace may come to this world of ours.”
Shiloh was a terrible battle, and now after fifty years have slipped by,
I sit in my easy chair and occasionally dream of the past. I seem to
hear again as vividly as then, the booming of cannon, the rattle of
musketry and the whiz of the minie-ball, amid the cries and groans of
my comrades who touched elbows with me, and I ask myself: “Can it
be? Was I there, or is it a wild fancy of the brain?” The scenes come
too vividly before my memory to doubt it, and I thank God that I was
able with my comrades to bear a humble part in saving to those who
come after us, this grand nation, and in helping to perpetuate but
one flag, the Stars and Stripes—the “Heaven-born banner”—to float
over a reunited land and people.
 CHAPTER VII.
Before leaving my story of the battle of Shiloh, it will interest the
reader to peruse the following account of a visit of some of the
participants in the battle, just 47 years after.
The National Association of the Survivors of the Battle of Shiloh held
their annual reunion on the battle field of Shiloh, April 6 and 7, 1909.
Sixty-six veterans, with their wives and sons and daughters, boarded
the steamer “Santillo” at St. Louis, Mo., April 2, 1909, and started for
Pittsburg Landing, Tenn. On the morning of April 6, 1909, we landed
at Pittsburg Landing, Tenn. Upon the bluff is the National Cemetery,
where 4,000 Union soldiers lie buried, most of the head stones
bearing the name “Unknown.” It is a beautiful cemetery, overlooking
the Tennessee River. The farmers from the surrounding country were
there with their hacks and carryalls ready to be engaged for a
reasonable sum to take the Northern visitors all over the battle field.
Our party secured a rancher with a big wagon drawn by a pair of lazy
mules (our objective point being the camp of the regiment of which
we were members), over fine made, drained roads, and although it
had rained heavily the night before, the roads were dry and clear of
mud. We found a National Park of nearly 4,000 acres, laid out with
roads in every direction; we found monuments everywhere, as well
as markers and tablets, denoting the camp of every regiment and
different positions held by each regiment and battery in the great
battle of April 6 and 7, 1862. Great credit is due the Park
Commissioners and Major D. W. Reed (of the 12th Iowa Regiment),
Secretary and Historian, for their magnificent work in making this
beauty spot in Tennessee. Monuments have been erected by the
different states in honor of their troops taking part in the battle. The
South have also erected monuments to the memory of the
Confederate troops. The Alabama state monument was dedicated
on April 7, 1909, both northern and southern men and women
participating. The Daughters of the Confederacy of Alabama had
sent flowers and a request that the ladies from the North would place
them upon the monument, which the Chicago, Iowa and South
Dakota ladies did. A prayer was offered and Capt. Irwin, an ex-
Confederate, made an address, and he was followed by a Union
veteran, eulogizing “Old Glory.” Then a young man from the South
spoke, saying among other things that he was glad he lived today
instead of forty-seven years ago, for now, if the United States were
called to a war, the North and South would go side by side,
defending their common country. And then the company sang
“Nearer, My God, to Thee.”
The two days at Shiloh battle field were filled with intense interest to
all who were present, especially the veterans who took part in the
battle; and where it happened that two or more members of the
same regiment were present they would hunt up their camp ground
and then find the different positions they held in the battle line of
those days, and standing on the same ground as then, live in
memory again the terrible scenes of the long ago. The battle line of
April 6 and 7, 1862, is about three miles in length and we visited
most every part of the field, including the most noted places, viz.: the
“Hornet’s Nest” and the “Bloody Pond.”
To those of our party who wended their way to Shiloh church, where
the battle began, a unique experience awaited us. On April 6 (there
being about twenty-five from the boat present), upon coming in sight
of the church, we beheld the citizens of the surrounding country, with
their wives and children, gathered from miles around. The Albert
Sidney Johnston Camp of Confederate Veterans were holding their
semi-annual meeting in the church, there being present probably
twenty-five veterans. We were met by the veterans of the
Confederate army with a glad shake and a cordial invitation to
remain to dinner with them, which was accepted, and we did enjoy
their fried chicken and all the other good things. The dinner was
eaten with the sauce of reminiscences and repartee between the
blue and the gray. We will give you one little incident in which the
Union veteran seemed to get the worst of it. Noticing the leanness of
the ex-Confederates, the Union veteran said: “Johnnie, how is it all
you fellows look so lean, as though you hadn’t enough to eat?” The
ex-Confederate, on a wooden leg, made quick reply: “Well, Yank,
you see it’s this way. You-uns shot us onto crutches and we-uns shot
you-uns on the pension roll.” After many a joke and story of the
battle, the people adjourned to the church for services, the church
being filled. Gen. Basil Duke, one of the Shiloh Park Commissioners,
gave a fine address, giving his experience in the battle of Shiloh,
where he was wounded. He was in Morgan’s command of the
Confederate army. Among other things he said:
“We fought in the Civil War for the cause we thought was right. We
believed the rights guaranteed to us under the constitution were
being taken away from us, and you must admit that our love for our
homes and property is as dear to us of the South as it is to you of the
North. The people of the North believed that to divide the United
States would destroy this Nation. Time has proved under the
providence of God that the judgment of the North was correct, for
had we succeeded in establishing the Confederate States of
America, no doubt later on other states would have felt aggrieved on
some question and would have seceded, and in time, had our cause
won, this nation would have been divided into a great many small
principalities governing themselves. Now the issues for the weal of
this great Nation are as dear to us of the South as you of the North.”
Gen. Duke closed his address by saying that: “We all rejoice at the
fraternal feelings now existing between the North and the South, and
hope that ever these bonds of love and good will between us may
grow and cement us together, stronger and stronger, and we shall
continue to prosper and enjoy the rights and privileges of this great
Nation.”
W. F. Crummer, of Chicago, Ill., on behalf of the boys in blue and
their friends, responded, contrasting the scenes of 47 years ago with
those of today. He said in part: “It was a beautiful Sabbath morning,
April 6, 1862. The birds were singing among the trees and nature
was putting forth her verdure of green, when suddenly the booming
of cannon, the shrieking of shells and the rattle of musketry heralded
the beginning of one of the most terrible battles of the Civil War. I will
not take the time to relate all my experiences of that battle, but
simply say this, that when, on Monday evening, we had regained our
camp, we found a few Sibley tents all riddled with shot and shell, and
while you, ex-Confederates here, had possession of our camp you
took my knapsack, blanket, the testament my mother gave me,
which I hope you read and profited thereby. You are welcome to that,
but one thing you took made me feel badly, and that was the picture
of the girl I left behind me, and I am here today to ask you to return
that picture. The scene of that awful field of carnage and bloodshed
changes. Today, after 47 years have rolled by, the birds are singing
in the trees and nature is putting forth its green as then, and all is
peaceful, and instead of cannon and bullets greeting us you meet us
with open hands and extend to us a cordial greeting and your
bountiful hospitality. Our hearts are moved and we thank you most
heartily. We rejoice with you that today we know no North, no South,
no East, no West, but a reunited country, with one flag and one
nation, the grandest Nation on the earth. We trust that we shall
always remain a happy and prosperous people, both North and
South, working together for the good of the entire country. The
feeling of good fellowship shown us today indicates that we are one
in spirit and love for our Nation. May we all so live that when the roll
is called up yonder we may answer ‘Here,’ and enter into the
heavenly land our God has prepared for us. Again thanking you for
your most kindly greeting and hospitality, I bid you Godspeed until
we meet again.”
The meeting was dismissed in a novel manner. All rose and, shaking
hands, sang as they marched around the church, to a Southern
melody: “It’s All Over Now; It’s All Over Now,” and with many a
“Come and see us again,” the veterans and their friends from the
North bade their Tennessee friends a hearty good bye.
 VICKSBURG
CHAPTER VIII.
A half of a century has passed since the memorable Vicksburg
campaign of the Civil War began in the year 1863.
It was my lot to take part in the Vicksburg campaign, and, in giving
some reminiscences of that siege, I must speak from the standpoint
of a soldier of the 45th Illinois Regiment, Gen. Logan’s division in
Gen. McPherson’s 17th Army Corps, being a part of Gen. Grant’s
army. Before taking you to the actual siege we must carry you with
the army from Milliken’s Bend on the Louisiana shore above
Vicksburg round on the west side of the Mississippi River to
Bruinsburg, 70 miles below Vicksburg, and tell you of the marches
and battles we had before we entered the city. In the spring of 1863
we find Gen. Grant and his army of 30,000 men encamped at
Milliken’s Bend. We could not cross the river at that point and attack
Vicksburg from the north, inasmuch as a large portion of that country
was an impassable swamp. The first plan devised was to cut a canal
to the west, thereby changing the current of the river, by which it was
proposed to carry troops, forage and ammunition by transports south
of Vicksburg, but this scheme proved ineffectual and was
abandoned. Where Vicksburg stands, the cliffs rise abruptly from the
water’s edge 200 feet. Twenty-eight heavy guns were mounted on
the river front, all of which had a plunging fire. Our gunboats could
not elevate their guns to do them any damage. Vicksburg was
impregnable from the north and the river front. Jeff Davis said:
“Vicksburg is the Gibralter of America.” By the way, speaking of Jeff
Davis reminds me he had a plantation not far from Vicksburg. Soon
after the Yankees reached that vicinity, Jeff’s slaves deserted him,
bag and baggage, and a queer lot of contrabands they were, indeed.
Notice the daring plan of Gen. Grant, namely, to take his army
around on the Louisiana shore to a point south of Vicksburg, cross
the river, cut loose from his base of supplies and enter the enemy’s
country.
Gen. Grant devised the plan to have Admiral Porter’s gunboats and
several steamboats, loaded with rations and ammunition, run the
batteries at Vicksburg and be ready to transport the army across the
river. The first intimation the rank and file had of such a thing was a
notice that our Colonel received one day from the Commanding
General: that volunteers were wanted to man the steamboats; to act
as firemen, engineers, pilots, etc. The Adjutant called the regiment
into line, and the Colonel explained what was wanted. He told the
soldiers of the dangerous undertaking; that in all probability the
steamers would be riddled with shot and shell and many might
perish. Notwithstanding all this, if there were any who would
volunteer for this service, let them step three paces to the front.
Almost the entire regiment stepped to the front. There was one
Lieutenant who did not step to the front. Suffice it to say he was
never promoted. The reason is obvious. The Colonel then told the
Captains to select those who had had some experience on the river,
and enough men were found to man a hundred steamers. There was
one of those brave volunteers of our regiment—Charlie Evans—who
held to the pilot wheel, when a cannon ball went crashing through
the pilot house, driving pieces of timber against him with such force
that he never fully recovered, and a few years after we buried him at
Galena, Ill. Now the boats are loaded and manned by those brave
boys from the Northern prairies. All is ready, the night is propitious,
the signal is given and Admiral Porter’s flotilla of gunboats and
steamers start down the river on the 16th day of April, 1863, to run
that storm of fire and iron hail. The enemy endeavored to send those
boats and their heroic crews to “Davy Jones’ Locker” that night, but
with the exception of one boat, the “Henry Clay,” they finally passed
through. For two hours and forty minutes the fleet was under fire.
Every transport was struck and disabled. For eight miles the enemy’s
cannon hurled shot at them, but the loss of men was small in killed
and wounded. Now the gunboats and steamboats have run the rebel
batteries and are below the city ready to transport the troops and
cannon from the west bank of the river to the east.
Prior to the running of the batteries, many of the troops had marched
down on the Louisiana side of the river to Hard Times and
Bruinsburg, and were waiting for the boats to arrive, with much
anxiety, fearful that they would not stand the awful hammering the
enemy would give them. The first to show up was the burning wreck
of the “Henry Clay.” As it floated by an old southern man whose
magnificent mansion bordered the Mississippi River, rubbed his
hands in glee, exclaiming, “Where are your gunboats now?
Vicksburg has put an end to them all.” Not long after his jubilant
remark the gunboats appeared coming down the river, and presently
the whole fleet hove in sight; then the boys, turning to the haughty
Southerner, said: “Did Vicksburg put an end to them all?” The old
man was too mad to endure the taunts, and turning away, hid
himself. The next day he set fire to his own home rather than allow it
to shelter his fancied enemies.
About this time there was excitement in Richmond and Washington.
The Confederate government was amazed that their “Gibralter”
should have been passed by the “Yankee” fleet of gunboats. At
Washington, consternation took hold of the officers at the war office.
Gen. Grant had not informed Gen. Halleck of his plans as to the
capture of Vicksburg. Halleck was angry and sent a dispatch
ordering Gen. Grant to turn back, but the dispatch failed to reach its
destination. There had been a determined effort made at Washington
by some Senators and Governors and friends of other Generals, to
have Grant removed from his command; but President Lincoln said
to them: “I rather like the man; I think we’ll try him a little longer.” So,
because of the faith of Lincoln in Grant’s ability, it became possible
for him to make that most remarkable campaign and capture of
Vicksburg. I believe it is a fact, that now, in the military schools of
Europe, the military campaign of Gen. Grant at Vicksburg is studied
and considered by authorities as one of the most daring and
brilliantly executed movements in modern warfare.
Now for the campaign as seen from a soldier’s view. The army has
been conveyed across the river. The enemy falls back to Port
Gibson, burning the bridges across the Bayou Pierre. The loss of the
bridges does not delay the army very long, for we are supplied with
boats or pontoons; with these, in addition to lumber from fences,
houses and barns, a bridge is soon built. After crossing the pontoon
bridge we soon encountered the enemy at Thompson Hill or Port
Gibson. A sharp fight ensues, but the enemy is soon routed and
retreats. During our fight at Thompson Hill we had with us that day a
Congressman from the North. He had a horse and was riding with
our Colonel when the quick rattle of musketry in our front was heard.
The order was quickly given and we were moving forward in line of
battle. Presently the usual noisy introduction of the sharp crack of
the musket and the whiz of the minie-ball opened the exercises.
There was a deep ravine a little in our rear. The Congressman or his
horse was very tired and remained in the ravine until he heard the
wild cheer of our victorious charge, when he came out of that ravine
on the gallop, swinging his hat and shouting: “Give it to ’em, boys.” It
was safe then. But you couldn’t blame him much. He wasn’t getting
the enormous sum of $13 per month to be shot at. A Congressman’s
salary didn’t justify the sacrifice of being riddled with bullets.
Three days’ rations are issued to the soldiers and this we are told
must sustain us for the next five days. The march is then resumed.
On May 12th, at 11 o’clock, we meet the enemy, 5,000 strong, at
Raymond, and the fight is opened by the artillery and a sharp battle
is fought. The enemy charge our lines, but are repulsed, the lighting
continuing until about 2 o’clock p. m., when the order for a charge is
given and forward with a cheer the boys go, the enemy breaking and
retreating. We occupy the town of Raymond that night. The dead are
buried; the wounded are cared for and by daybreak the next morning
we are on the march, headed for Jackson, Miss., to clean out Gen.
Johnston, and his army that he has concentrated at that place. Our
rations are getting short, but the country affords us a fair supply of
some things, such as fresh pigs, chickens and vegetables, which we
take as a matter of crippling the enemy as well as to satisfy the
hungry boys in blue. Our march begins at 4 o’clock in the morning.
One day we marched all day in the drizzling rain and at night when
we camped we were wet to the skin, hungry and tired, but not one
word of grumbling could be heard. On May 14, 1863, we arrive at the
outskirts of Jackson and meet the enemy. During the battle at
Jackson a rather amusing incident happened. We were in line of
battle and had moved up to the vicinity of a plantation around which
were scattered a number of bee hives. Now, had we not been
engaged with the enemy, our boys would have liked nothing better
than to have despoiled those bees and supped on honey, but for the
present we had important work on hand. The bees were quiet
enough until the minie-balls went crashing through their hives, when
they came out and rushed at us with terrible ferocity. Men can stand
up and be shot at, all day, with the deadly musket, but when a swarm
of bees pounces upon a company of men in concert, it’s beyond
human nature to stand it, and so two or three companies retired from
the field. In fact, our lines were re-formed in that particular locality so
as to avoid those Southern bees. They had no “rebel yell,” but their
charge on us was a successful one. We sometimes captured things
we did not want. At Jackson we captured a smallpox hospital and its
inmates. We didn’t want it, you may be sure, for everybody kept at a
respectful distance from it.
The battle of Jackson is fought, the final charge is made and the city
is ours, Gen. Johnston and his army retreating to the north and east.
The final charge made by the Iowa boys under Gen. Crocker of
Iowa, was one of the most superb and gallant of the war. Gen. Grant
said that, with the exception of Sherman and Sheridan, Gen. Crocker
was the best division commander in the army. We are now 80 miles
from Grand Gulf and 50 miles east of Vicksburg. Immediately the
army is wheeled about and faced toward Vicksburg, and the march
commences to that city.
 CHAPTER IX.
On May 16, 1863, at Champion Hill, the enemy was encountered,
strongly stationed, on a series of ridges or hills, naturally well
adapted for defensive purposes. Here we met Gen. Pemberton’s
army of over 40,000 men coming out of the entrenched position in
the city to make mince meat of Grant’s army. The battle opened early
in the forenoon and raged for half a day, in which only 15,000
soldiers, or a portion of Grant’s army, was engaged. It was one of the
hard-fought battles of the war and one of the most bloody. The battle
was mainly fought by McPherson’s 17th Army Corps and Hovey’s
division of the 13th Corps.
Gen. Logan’s charge on the extreme right, about three o’clock in the
afternoon, was one of the finest charges of troops that I witnessed
during the war, and I was in nine different battles. It has been said
that at the battle of Champion Hill for a time there was as fierce
fighting as any seen in the west. The colors of my regiment were
riddled with bullets and our color guards were all killed or wounded.
About three o’clock the enemy gave way and commenced a retreat
towards Vicksburg.
After driving the enemy from the field those engaged all day were
tired out and halted for a time on the battle field. I would like to
portray the scene that we gazed upon. It was a horrible picture and
one that I carry with me to this day. All around us lay the dead and
dying, amid the groans and cries of the wounded. Our surgeons
came up quickly and, taking possession of a farm house, converted
it into a hospital, and we began to carry ours and the enemy’s
wounded to the surgeons. There they lay, the blue and the gray
intermingled; the same rich, young American blood flowing out in
little rivulets of crimson; each thinking he was in the right; the one
conscious of it today, the other admitting now it were best the Union
should be maintained one and inseparable. The surgeons made no
preference as to which should be first treated; the blue and the gray
took their turn before the surgeon’s knife. What heroes some of
those fellows were; with not a murmur or word; with no anaesthetic
to sooth the agony, but gritting their teeth, they bore the pain of the
knife and saw, while arms and legs were being severed from their
bodies. There was just one case that was an exception to the rule.
He was a fine-looking officer and Colonel of some Louisiana
regiment of the Confederate army. He had been shot through the leg
and was making a great ado about it. Dr. Kittoe, of our regiment,
examined it and said it must be amputated; the poor fellow cried and
howled: “Oh, I never can go home to my wife on one leg. Oh, oh, it
must not be.” “Well,” said the gruff old surgeon, “that, or not go home
at all.” The Colonel finally said yes, and in a few minutes he was in a
condition (if he got well) to wear a wooden leg when he went home
to his wife.
The enemy are retreating to the city to get behind the breastworks,
and Grant’s army is pushing them right along every day. It is twenty
days now since the campaign began. In that time the army has
marched nearly 200 miles, beaten two armies in five different battles,
captured 27 heavy cannon and 61 pieces of field artillery; taken
6,500 prisoners and killed and wounded at least 6,000 of the enemy.
Starting without teams and with an average of three days’ rations in
the haversacks, we subsisted principally on forage found in the
country. Only five days’ rations had been issued in twenty days. Still,
neither suffering nor complaint was witnessed in the command. The
army was in fine condition, so Gen. Grant said. Since it had left
Milliken’s Bend it had marched by day and night, through mud and
rain, without tents and on irregular rations. Gen. Grant said then: “My
force is composed of hardy and disciplined men, who know no
defeat and are not willing to learn what it is.” Well, if marching day
and night in the mud and rain, on short rations, made us hardy, I
reckon he told the truth. I tell you today, after 50 years have passed,
I can remember the gnawing of hunger on that memorable march,
and I recollect one day spying a piece of bacon rind at the road side,
which some more fortunate soldier had thrown away, and grabbing it
as a great treasure I removed the dirt and ate it with a ravenous
appetite. Before we get to Vicksburg we must have another battle at
the Big Black River. The enemy were discovered in force, strongly
posted near the bridge. The day was hot and Gen. Lawler, who was
rushing around in his shirt sleeves, discovered that by moving one
portion of his brigade through the brush under cover of the river
bank, the remainder to push directly against the left flank of the
enemy, he could reach a position where he would be able to carry
the works by storm. As soon as his troops were properly placed,
Gen. Lawler led his boys in blue in a magnificent charge, capturing
one entire brigade of the enemy, and forcing the remainder to beat a
hasty retreat to Vicksburg.
On May 18, 1863, Gen. Grant’s army invested the enemy’s defenses
of Vicksburg and then commenced a siege that lasted for 47 days,
an account of which it is my purpose to give as concisely as
possible. The enemy’s breastworks encircled the city somewhat in
the shape of a horseshoe, being about eight miles in length. The
ground around the city is very rough; steep hills, deep gullies,
underbrush, cane and willows and everything to impede the army.
Gen. Grant, with about 30,000 men, had cooped up Gen. Pemberton
and his army of over 35,000 men. (Seven weeks later P. surrendered
30,000 men.) Soon after Gen. Grant had assigned his several Corps
Commanders to their places (Gen. Sherman being on the right, Gen.
McPherson in the center and Gen. McClernand on the left), several
charges were made at different points on the line, but owing to the
strong forts and entrenchments, the enemy repulsed us with heavy
loss. The union lines, however, are advanced, positions for artillery
are selected, and the daily duel of the sharpshooters is opened up in
the immediate front.
After so much marching and fighting, the boys in blue are weary and
hungry, and a few days’ rest is granted the men, that they may
attend to some washing and cleaning up. Very few of us had a
second shirt to wear. Toward the close of the war but few carried
knapsacks; it wasn’t necessary. It is related of an Irishman that, upon
being asked why he didn’t go to the Quartermaster and draw a
knapsack, replied: “An’ what do I want a knapsack for?” “Why, to put
your clothes in, Pat.” “Sure, an’ if I should go on dress parade wid
me clothes in me knapsack the Colonel would be after puttin’ me in
the guard house.” May 21st we are furnished with a good square
meal by Uncle Sam—if hard tack, sow bacon, beans and coffee can
be called a square meal. We so considered it after the hardships of
the last month. And having been strengthened in the inner man with
plenty of food, Gen. Grant proposes to carry Vicksburg by storm on
the morrow, May 22, 1863. Shall we ever forget that desperate
charge? No, and I believe had Gen. Grant known at the time how
strongly the enemy were entrenched and how valiantly they would
fight, he would never have ordered that charge. He thought, no
doubt, as we soldiers believed, that having been so successful in
meeting the enemy recently, we could whip any armed force that
opposed us. May 22, 1863, the order was given to commence the
attack at 10 o’clock. At that hour the battle opened; every piece of
artillery was brought to bear on the works; sharpshooters at the
same time began their part; nothing could be heard but the continual
shrieking of shells, the booming of cannon and the sharp whiz of the
minie-ball. At the time the assault was attempted our bivouac was in
a ravine just east of the “White House,” or “Shirley House.” Running
in front of the house was the main Jackson wagon road leading into
the city. For about five hundred yards the road had been cut down in
the ridge to a depth of a man’s head, then the ridge sloped a little
and the road opened out in plain view of the forts of the enemy not
200 yards distant. We marched in columns of four through this cut in
the road until we reached the point where we would be exposed to
the enemy’s guns, then we were to deploy to the left along the slope
of the hill, until the entire regiment was out of the road, when at the
word of the commanding officer—“By the right flank, charge”—we
were to go over the enemy’s works. As we came out of that road
Major Cowan gave the command, “double quick,” and we started
across that open space. Major Cowan, commanding the regiment,
fell at the first volley from the enemy, having only taken a step or
two.
The enemy was watching and the instant we appeared in sight they
opened into us an awful volley of shot and shell. There was no one
to give the command to halt, or right face and charge; the Major was
killed and the ranking Captain didn’t know it. We went as far in that
hail of death as we thought would be sufficient for the regiment to
form in line of battle, and then we dropped flat on the ground. Being
First Sergeant of Company A of my regiment, I was at the head of
the regiment with Major Cowan when we started across that deadly
piece of open ground, the Major falling by my side, but I kept right on
at the head of the regiment until space enough was given the
regiment to form in line under the brow of the hill. The ground sloped
down hill from the enemy’s parapet, and by flattening one’s self
about as flat as a hard tack, he was comparatively safe from the
musketry fire of the enemy. The regiment came through, but the
dead and wounded lay thick over that stretch of 200 yards. The order
to charge the works was, after a short time, given by the ranking
Captain, and we started up the hill, to be met by a sweeping volley of
musketry at short range, which mowed the men down in bunches.
We could not return the fire, for the enemy were safe behind their
breastworks. Some of our men reached the top of the parapet, but
fell as fast as they climbed up. No troops could face such a
destructive fire from a protected enemy. Presently the order is given
to fall back, and we retire under the brow of the hill and remain there
until after dark, when we took our usual place in the rear of the
“White House.” The charge of my regiment is but a picture of all
other regiments that took part on that day. The assault was no more
successful at other points of the line, and the Union army suffered
great loss. The works were strongly constructed and well arranged to
sweep the approaches in every direction; their position was too
strong, both naturally and artificially, to be taken by storm. Wherever
the assault was attempted, the hillsides were covered with the slain
and wounded, many of them lying in the hot sun during the day
crying for water, which could not be taken to them. Three thousand
Union soldiers were killed or wounded in this disastrous charge;
more men in this one charge were lost than were lost during the late
Spanish War. The army was now made sadly sure that over ground
so rough and with such strong forts and entrenchments it could not
hope to carry Vicksburg by storm. It clearly proved the great
advantage an army has in having breastworks and entrenchments to
cope with the enemy. Gen. Grant had had such wonderful success
so far that he really thought his troops could walk right up to and
inside those fortifications. But the fact has been demonstrated that
the loss of precious lives would be too great, and preparations for a
siege were begun and the pick and shovel were brought into
requisition. Saps and rifle trenches were constructed and in these
our sharpshooters were continually on the lookout for the hidden
enemy. Before we had constructed outer rifle pits so as to make
them comparatively safe, our boys with their bayonets and a tin
plate, dug little holes in the ground and on top of the earth placed a
few fence rails. Between these rails our men could pick off the
sharpshooters of the enemy and many a duel was had here between
the pickets of the two armies.
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