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here commenced almost the instant I had formed, and was for four hours the most hotly contested I have witnessed. My own command fought with great gallantry and desperation, and for two hours I gradually drove the enemy from his position, and he, though constantly reinforced during the conflict, and with heavy odds in his favor at the beginning, failed utterly in accomplishing anything. .. . During the engagement here I was reinforced by Colonel Gibson with a Louisiana brigade, and by Colonel Campbell with his gallant Thirty-third Tennessee, all of whom deserve particular mention. ... At half-past 1 o'clock I occupied about the same position at which I first came in collision with the enemy. Major A. P. Avegno, commanding the Thirteenth Louisiana, of Gibson's brigade, was mortally wounded here, and many officers and men fell resisting the Federal onsets. Being now reinforced with artillery, in which he had been deficient, Cheatham continues: Thus strengthened, I would h
is stood somewhat boldly forth the clear-cut and expanded nostrils of a broad-based nose which, slightly inclining upward, grew out from beneath his prominently developed brow where thought sat as upon a throne. His full and angular though rounded forehead rose upward till its high window's peaks were lost under dark-brown hair a little mixed with gray, extremely fine and wavy almost to curls. His deep-set, blue-gray eyes, small, and, when unexcited, somewhat dull, were of that sort which Campbell describes as melting in love and kindling in war. Over these features a skin naturally soft, white, and clear, though now slightly bronzed from exposure, completed a picture of more than ordinary manly beauty. Courage and modesty, intellect and goodness, cheerfully divided the empire over his expressive face. When absorbed in thought his head leaned forward and his body slightly bent. At all other times he was strikingly erect. His soldierly port, devoid of stiffness, was character
symptoms in the human animal of a want of heart of hope. I will add that I saw little of it to the end. The unavoidable delay in crossing the Appomattox had given General Grant time to mass a heavy force — as General Meade's report shows-at Burkesville Junction; and if it was General Lee's intention to advance on the east side of the Danville road, he gave it up. I believe, however, that such was never his design. His trains were directed to move through Cumberland, Prince Edward, and Campbell, toward Pittsylvania; and the army would naturally keep near enough to protect them, moving southward between the Junction and Farmville. While the troops were resting at Amelia Court-House, and waiting for the rear to come up, the Federal commander must have pushed forward with great rapidity. His cavalry was already scouring the country far in advance of the Confederate column, and the numbers and excellence of this branch of their service gave them a fatal advantage. The reserve train
hat if the fact of its existence were not concealed, I should be either sent to jail or hung. He looked at it, and fruitful as he was of expedients, soon devised a remedy. He first tacked a piece of carpet over the hole, and afterward, finding that it would yield if trodden upon, constructed a rude seat immediately above it. This, and other manifestations of intellectual and mechanical aptness, led me into a train of reflection concerning a race so decried and degraded. I asked with Campbell- Was man ordained the slave of man to toil, Yoked with the brutes, and fettered to the soil; Weighed in a tyrant's balance with his gold? No! Nature stamped us in a heavenly mould! She bade no wretch his thankless labor urge, Nor, trembling, take the pittance and the scourge. From this time I became deeply interested in my African protege. He seemed keenly alive to his condition. He told me in a conversation that the colored people were all heathens — they knew nothing. I was t
Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Arrival of the peace commissioners-lincoln and the peace commissioners-an anecdote of Lincoln-the winter before Petersburg-Sheridan Destroys the Railroad — Gordon Carries the picket line-parke Recaptures the line-the battle of White Oak road (search)
he peace commissioners-an anecdote of Lincoln-the winter before Petersburg-Sheridan Destroys the Railroad — Gordon Carries the picket line-parke Recaptures the line-the battle of White Oak road On the last of January, 1865, peace commissioners from the so-called Confederate States presented themselves on our lines around Petersburg, and were immediately conducted to my headquarters at City Point. They proved to be Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederacy, Judge [John A.] Campbell, Assistant-Secretary of War, and R. M. T. Hunter, formerly United States Senator and then a member of the Confederate Senate. It was about dark when they reached my headquarters, and I at once conducted them to the steamer Mary Martin, a Hudson River boat which was very comfortably fitted up for the use of passengers. I at once communicated by telegraph with Washington and informed the Secretary of War and the President of the arrival of these commissioners and that their object was to
and I hope you will bring it to me. He always stopped with some member of his congregation in making his rounds. He appeared at the hour he chose, without any previous notice, announcing the moment of his arrival that he was hungry, or otherwise, and the hour he was due at the church, so that his host would know what he expected. His wonderful ability and marvellous understanding of the Scriptures drew about him large congregations of interested listeners. The great debate between Campbell and Rice made the deepest impression upon the whole country, and caused a division in the Baptist denomination, and the organization of the Campbellite Baptist Church. Of this there were very many adherents in southern Illinois, my mother and father being among the number. In fact, at one time this church had many communicants in Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. President Garfield was a minister of that branch of the Baptist Church. . The ministrations and labors of these early Chri
anta, that he knew General Logan, as a War Democrat, would espouse McClellan's cause, greatly to the vexation of General Logan's friends, who were devoted to Mr. Lincoln. One day, in the presence of a number of persons, he became so sanguine that he offered to bet a fine span of mules he owned against five hundred dollars that Logan would support McClellan. Seeing the annoyance and unhappiness his statement produced upon the friends, though not given to such practices, I said: All right, Mr. Campbell, I will take your bet, since you are so confident. A half-dozen hands were instantly thrust into plethoric pockets, and the money was proffered to be put up to pay if I lost, and to be sure that I would have the mules if I won. I heard nothing from General Logan for many weeks, and knew as little as any of them as to his position on political questions, except from intuition, and an appreciation of the situation and his well-known devotion to his country. At last the day arrived
the swamps and corduroys of Georgia and the Carolinas, the burning suns, and pitiless storms of winter, the marches, the battles, the suffering and carnage of the long four years intervening between April, 1861, and May, 1865. General Logan forgot that he had been relieved unjustly of the command of the Army of the Tennessee after his great victory at Atlanta and speedy avenging of the death of McPherson, July 22, 1864. All were going home soon and only thought and dreamed of bliss, like Campbell's soldier. Even in the dead of the night sweet visions they saw, and thrice ere the morning they dreamed them again. From morning till night, for two days, these victorious cohorts were marching through Pennsylvania Avenue, past the President, and back to their quarters. Banners were flying; battered flags were borne by proud color-bearers; the bands played the familiar airs that had inspired many a faltering heart in battle, while the glittering bayonets of the infantry and bright pl
John G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion, Chapter 4: Lincoln. (search)
ey affected to represent, sought excuse to delay their departure, and Associate Justice Campbell, of the Supreme Court of the United States, volunteered to act as an intermediary in continuing to press their errand upon the Secretary of State. Campbell had at tho beginning publicly opposed secession and still professed loyalty; a. It seems that Seward, in this unofficial intimacy, did not hesitate to tell Campbell of his own willingness to give up Sumter, and of his belief that the Presidenter may have been his language, a patriot could not have misunderstood it. But Campbell had meanwhile become so far committed to the cause of the conspiracy, that he have seen, he made the order to prepare the relief expedition. By this time, Campbell, in extreme impatience to further rebellion, was importuning Seward for explanw one. Upon consultation, therefore, the President authorized him to carry to Campbell the first and only assurance the Administration ever made with regard to Sumte
John G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of Rebellion, Chapter 5: Sumter. (search)
to come by sea. The commander was ambitious, the men were enthusiastic, and the Governor untiring in his revolutionary ardor and impatience. It is, therefore, little wonder that, after a month of laborious effort and co-operation, Beauregard telegraphed (April 1st) to Montgomery: Batteries ready to open Wednesday or Thursday. What instructions? Up to this time the rebel government indulged the pleasing hope that Lincoln would give up the for and save them the dreaded ordeal of war. Justice Campbell had ingeniously misreported the sense and purport of Seward's conversations; and the commissioners and their Washington cronies, with equally blind zeal, sent rosy despatches on the strength of exaggerated street-rumors. So confident were they of such a result that Governor Pickens, Secretary Walker, and General Beauregard found some difficulty in settling among themselves the exact conditions upon which they would permit Anderson and his garrison to depart when the order to evacuate S