Jan. 14, 1864. |
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to Strawberry Plain, on the railway, with a loss of about one hundred and fifty men.1 At about the same time General Robert Vance went over the Smoky Mountain from North Carolina, into East Tennessee, with about four hundred cavalry and two pieces of artillery.
It was a most perilous march, over icy roads.
Vance left the bulk of his force at the foot of the mountain, and led one hundred and seventy-five men on a reconnaissance toward Sevierville, south of Dandridge.
On the way he heard of a National wagon-train moving not far off. On this he pounced
in a fierce charge, and captured seventeen wagons and twenty-six men. With his plunder he attempted to return by way of the head of Cosby Creek, where, on the following morning, he was surrounded by the Fourth Illinois Cavalry, under Major Davidson, who thoroughly dispersed the Confederates and captured General Vance, with a part of his staff and about a hundred men, and recaptured the prisoners and wagons.
From that time until the close of January, Sturgis was continually menaced by Longstreet, who appeared to be determined to repossess himself of Knoxville; but his movement was only a mask, behind which his army soon retired into Virginia.2
Morgan and his men lingered in East Tennessee about four months after Longstreet withdrew into Virginia.
His numbers were comparatively few, but he managed to so magnify them as to command the respect of the National forces in that region.
Finally, late in May, when Union troops were co-operating with the Grand Army of the Potomac in its movement on Richmond, and were making their way into Southwestern Virginia for the purpose of seizing the great railway communications between Lee and Johnston, Morgan, who, even with some disjointed cavalry forces Co-operating, was too feeble to oppose them, was sent over the mountains into Kentucky to raid through that State, and, if possible, divert some of the National forces from Southwestern Virginia and East Tennessee.
As this was the last important raid in which that dashing leader was engaged, and as his career was brought to a close a few months later, when he disappeared from the scenes of the great drama, we will here anticipate the depending order of events a little, and trace in outline a record of Morgan's most notable experiences during the summer of 1864.
1 The cold at that time was intense, and the soldiers suffered much for want of food for awhile. The men had nothing but shelter tents, and their clothing was nearly worn out; and yet, in this condition, with patriotism undiminished by suffering, these half-naked, half-starved soldiers, whose terms of service there expired, cheerfully re-enlisted. It was the history of Valley Forge repeated at Strawberry Plain.
2 At the beginning of January, 1864, some spicy but courteous correspondence occurred between Generals Foster and Longstreet, concerning the circulation of handbills among the soldiers of the latter, containing a copy of President Lincoln's Amnesty Proclamation. See page 232. It was having a powerful effect, and Longstreet found the number of desertions from his army rapidly increasing. Whereupon he wrote to Foster, saying he supposed the immediate object of such circulation was to induce desertions and win his men to the taking of an oath of allegiance to the National Government. He suggested that it would be more proper to make any communications to his soldiers on the subject of peace and reconciliation through the commanding general, rather than by handbills. Foster replied that he was right in supposing that the object of the handbills was to induce men in rebellion against their Government to lay down their arms and become good citizens, and he sent twenty copies of the Amnesty Proclamation to Longstreet, that he might himself, in accordance with his own suggestion, show his desire for peace, by circulating them among his officers and men. Longstreet regarded this as “trifling over the great events of the war,” when Foster replied by communicating through him to his army the terms upon which there might “be a speedy restoration of peace throughout the land,” which was, in substance, absolute submission to the National authority. He also inclosed a copy of an order, which he had felt compelled to issue, on account of the frequent capture of Confederates in the National uniform, by which corps commanders were directed to shoot dead “all rebel officers and soldiers wearing the uniform of the United States Army, captured in future within our lines.”
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