Chapter 3: Promotion

Hamlin had left the Maine Democratic Party to lead the Republicans. Butler had stayed in the Massachusetts Democratic Party except for a brief period as the gubernatorial candidate of the Massachusetts Southern Democratic Party. They were politically incompatible.

On the other hand, Hamlin was an early advocate of colored troops, and so was Butler. The force that Butler proposed to raise would require only equipment to turn it into a grave threat to Jeff Davis, one that Davis couldn’t meet. Raising more white troops had, before Lincoln’s assassination, started to look ruinously expensive both in terms of money and of political capital.

Hamlin supported Butler’s new unit. The army was to furnish it adequately. When this meant repeating carbines for his cavalry, then those should be furnished, as well. Enough general officers and trained staff should be sent him to match the units he had.

Faced with merchants who treated Union greenbacks like Confederate money, Butler persuaded the Treasury to send him a load of their Confederate money. He established exchanges where soldiers could buy Confederate money 10 for 1 with their pay.

With Confederate money available, Sam warren thought he should buy a watch; an officer needed a watch. He exchanged $20 US -- what he thought of as “real money” -- for $200 in Confederate money. Then he went shopping. At first, he couldn’t find a store which sold watches. None were made in the Confederacy, and the blockade had been fairly successful.

He found, though, a man who was willing to sell him the watch he was using for the $200 Confederate. “This will feed my family for a week.”

Sam thought that made a good trade, though the watch couldn’t be bought in Illinois for money to buy a week’s worth of food. The man turned bitter, though.

“And where did you get the money? Did you steal it from some family which was trying to buy their own food?” he asked.

“I didn’t steal it at all. I bought it from the United States government.”

“Which stole it.”

“I seem to remember Georgia taking coin from the government because it could. It’s a little late to pretend to be nice about who owns what in a war.”

“It was ours as much as it was yours. It was our country, too. You can’t pretend that this money was in one of your northern states.”

“Well,” Sam said, “It’s not the northern states you’re fighting. I’m not wearing the uniform of Illinois. I’m wearing the uniform of the United States.” They were never going to agree, and he tipped his cap and went on. The watch gave him good service, though.

Sam was busy, but in the back of his head was the memory that he hadn’t heard from Alice since Thanksgiving. When Butler promoted him to Colonel, he took the time to write her.

Dear Alice,

You won’t believe. I’m an officer now.
Everything I ever told you about officers
is true of me.
Actually, I’m colonel of a colored regiment,
the 1st Georgia Colored Cavalry. I’ve been
training freedmen to be cavalry, or at least
mounted infantry. When I get back home, and
I believe more and more that I will get back
home, I’ll tell you the difference.
Taking the commssion means that I have agreed
to serve until the end of the war. I had earlier
thought that I might return to you by Christmas
when my enlistment expired. Many of us talked
about that earlier.
When they killed Lincoln, though, the talk changed.
General Butler requires that anyone who takes a
commission in the new regiments agrees to serve until
the end of the war. But those staying in the old
regiment have almost all re-enlisted, too.

We have started this job, and we have lost
too many friends doing it to leave it half done.
I do love you. I dream about you on many a night.
But you sent me off to defend the Union, and you
would not want me back until the Union is restored.
I love you, Alice. Write me. I want to hear about
your life. Even more, though, I want to see your name
on a letter. If you can’t write me about your life,
write me anything.

When, two days later and five days before Alice could be expected to receive his letter, he got a letter in her handwriting, Sam at first thought that his prayers had beeen answered.

Reading it showed how wrong he was.

Dearest Sam,

This is the hardest letter I have ever had to write
in my life, even harder than the one I had to
write to Kit after Grandmother died.
Please don’t hate me.
It’s been a long time since you left, and I was young then.
I met someone else. Ben Swenson was wounded at Gettysburg.
He was a major when he lost his arm, but he’s retired now.
You wouldn’t have wanted me to say no when a wounded
soldier asked me to dance.
Well, it’s been a while now, and I want you to release
me from our engagement.
Please forgive me.

Alice Donaldson.

Well, at least she hadn’t signed it “Alice Swenson.”

He wrote her a one-line letter telling her that she was free of him. After that, he poured all his energies into the Georgia Colored Cavalry.

One of his great problems was finding sergeants. Sam had been a sergeant, and he had high standards for the rank. One of the duties he thought minor was keeping records. There were so few former slaves who could read and write, though, that he found himself using that as the main criterion.

Some troops ended up with privates from rural plantations who could ride well and sergeants from the City of Savannah who could ride badly but who could write acceptably.

The typical Union regiment started out with 1,000 (infantry) or 1,200 (cavalry) men. They would select an adequate number of officers and non-coms. Then they would march off, and the state officials would raise another regiment. Sickness, well before any battle, would cut down their number, but nothing would replace those losses. Some regiments reduced the number of companies, and -- consequently -- the number of officers and non-coms needed. Generally, though, losses of commissioned and noncommissioned officers were supplied by promotion from the ranks.

Butler, with troops that didn’t have that expectation -- had, in fact, very few expectations indeed -- recruited regiments from the freedmen one at a time and had them trained. From the original six regiments, men were lost through sickness, findings of total unfitness, and recruitment into the cavalry. The seventh and eighth regiments trained were essentially disbanded. Their members were used as replacements for the first six. Officers either replaced sick officers or were sent back to train more soldiers.

The Ninth Georgia Colored Infantry simply was renumbered the seventh, but the process went on for later units. When troops were discharged from the hospital, they were placed, by preference, in their original units. When those units were up to strength, they filled other holes.

When the Army of the Savannah marched out of the city -- it was named for the river, rather than the city -- it contained 3 infantry divisions of 4 brigades apiece. Each brigade included 4 regiments. The regiments, which had begun with 1,000 men varied as low as 920. They left -- aside from the active-duty garrison in which the white regiments, much depleted by promotions to officers of colored units, had been supplemented by several colored ones -- 3 brigades planning to raid plantations to the south and southwest as soon as the rice harvest was in, 5 infantry and 3 cavalry regiments in training, a conscription office, and several thousand hospitalized troops.

The cavalry division, commanded by Brigadier General Samuel Warren, had 3 brigades of 4 regiments each. Each regiment had something over 1,100 troopers. They left 3 regiments in training behind, and horses for 5 more regiments if they could be raised. (Unlike other Union armies, the Army of the Savannah seized all its horses rather than buying them.) Each trooper was armed with a repeating carbine, a revolver, and a saber.

The table of a cavalry unit had no room for an officer to deal with ordinance. Warren’s staff, however, included several former armorer-sergeants. Repeating carbines tended to jam, and repairing them was a priority. They had found several former slaves who were good at tinkering, and they had been taken from any other duty and set up as armorers.

When Sherman had left the city, he had taken with him all his artillery and whatever the Confederates had left which could be moved as field artillery. He had left some guns in place that served as defenses for the city but could not be used in the field. He had also left artillery forces to man them. Butler had colored troops trained on those guns, but he could not take them with him.

Led by officers who had almost all been foragers, the army cut a narrower path than Sherman’s troops had. Their 40 miles, though, were foraged as heavily, and they destroyed any railroad tracks as thoroughly. Where Sherman had avoided fortified places between Atlanta and Savannah, Butler’s intention was to reduce the standing Confederate forces in the state and also to raze industrial bases those Confederates were protecting. His first target was Augusta. The Confederate armies needed the powder that plants in and near the city produced. Their people also needed to be certain that no Confederate army would retreat from black troops.

The battle was intense and bloody. When infantry captured one section of the outer trenches, Warren sent dismounted Cavalry forward. One regiment turned left in the trenches, and the next turned right. They fought with repeating carbines to extend the captured section of the first trench.

Fresh infantry and more cavalry charged the second line of trenches. When the cavalry got there, they again split and took the second line. More forces pushed forward to take the rifle pits.

Warren sent riders to fetch all the remaining cavalry on horseback. The first regiments to arrive dismounted and surged forward. Warren sent later arrivals forward still mounted.

Suddenly, there was a greater hole in the Confederate line than there were troops available to fill it. Then, too, there were Union cavalry loose behind the lines.

The city, several thousand prisoners, and several guns were captured. A British journalist, reporting on the Confederate war effort from there, agreed to accompany Butler and his army. The reporter, Reginald Jenkins a cavalry officer on leave from the British army, was intrigued by the idea of a mostly-black army. He thought “sepoy,” but that wasn’t quite what was happening.

Butler sent back his wounded, his prisoners, a large collection of newly freed “contrabands,” and an escort to Savannah. He sent a message to have all the troops trained in his absence to be sent to him, along with the trained colored artillerymen.

The escort would, with many of the colored regiments previously on garrison duty, those trained since, and all the sick recovered since the first force left rendezvous at Midgerville. That was the state capital, and another fortified town. The fortifications were much weaker than Augusta’s had been, and Sherman’s army had already taken it once, but he didn’t think that they would surrender their capital to a colored army without a fight.

His more important target was Columbus Georgia. It was on the border with Alabama and was what passed for a major arms-manufacturing city in the shrinking Confederacy.

The Confederate government did not need leaks to know the Union plans when Butler’s line of march was clearly in that direction. (Midgerville was close to a straight line from Augusta to Columbia and more than 2/3 the distance.) Davis called Forrest and his cavalry to Montgomery. He gave him several times as many infantry. This was now the “Army of Eastern Alabama,” and it was sent to Columbia. It had taken too much time for it to be any use to Midgerville.

As soon as Midgerville was surrounded and before the reinforcements had arrived, Butler sent for Warren. He wanted some cavalry left with the main force, but he had two independent assignments for most of them.

First, there was a prisoner-of-war camp – Andersonville -- not far away. They were to capture it, take the guards captive -- or kill those who didn’t surrender -- free the Union soldiers, and add them to Warren’s forces.

Then he was to go to the next bridge south of Columbus. Taking a bridge defended by a serious military force on the other side was a fool’s errand. The Army of the Savannah would take Columbus, which was on this side of the Chattahoochee River. Meanwhile, the cavalry would capture the next bridge downstream. They would entrench on both sides -- just in case the Confederates had troops on the Georgia side -- and hold the bridge until Butler brought the main infantry force down and across the bridge.

Warren saluted and said “Yes, sir.” He had only one star fewer than Butler, but he could remember when he was a sergeant interviewed by General Butler. When he was given an assignment, he did it or died trying. He could tell that holding that bridge would make the second option quite possible.

On the other hand, capturing the prison camp was simpler. A good one-night ride away, he left his wagons under sufficient escort, and rode until the camp was close. He sent out regiments to each of the sides with orders to dismount far away, creep up to near range of the carbines, and lie down.

He rode up to the gate leading more than half his force in columns of four. It stretched out much further than the guards could see, and the cavalry had their Union flags unfurled. No guard was stupid enough to fire at that display of overwhelming force. As he rode forward slowly and silently, regimental commanders led their regiments silently but less slowly to each flank. He gestured to the bugler, and he blew a call. Immediately, there was a ragged volley from the other sides of the camp. The troopers had been ordered to take careful aim before firing, and the distances were enough that some heard the bugle call significantly later than others.

“Inform the camp commandant that I am here to accept his surrender,” Sam said in a parade-ground voice. “Is anyone in charge of the gate guard?”

“I am, sir.” The ‘sir’ was already a significant victory.

“Then send for the camp commander.”

That officer appeared within minutes.

“What does this mean?” he spluttered.

“It means that you are a captive.”

“I don’t surrender to niggers.”

“And they don’t accept your surrender,” Sam said. (Though he had persuaded his troops to accept some.) Confederate soldiers had murdered surrendered colored Union soldiers, and many colored troopers didn’t see the use of accepting surrenders from men who wouldn’t honor theirs. “If you surrender to me, they will accept my orders. If something happens to me, they will shoot you all down like dogs. Do you see that you are vastly outnumbered by regular troops armed with repeating carbines?”

The camp commander, unlike most of his guards, was a trained soldier. He surrendered. Before noon, the wagons had caught up. The Confederates were being marched along, and those Union soldiers not strong enough to march -- saying “prisoners” leads to confusion between those who were prisoners the day before and were now free and those who had been guards the day before and were now prisoners -- rode in the wagons.

Warren left a two-regiment escort and took the rest of his force at an easy walk towards the river. They captured the town with the bridge the next day. They forced the residents to leave and dug trenches for a major defense on both sides of the river. The troopers all had been trained as infantrymen first, and the officers had seen enough advantage of trenches that they urged their men on.

He had his entire force back together, including the freed ex-prisoner Union men inadequately armed with the guns the Confederate guards had used, a day before anyone bothered them.

Then a force of Confederate cavalry rode up on the Alabama side of the river. They delivered one probing attack on the trenches and rode off.

The cavalry division had made a habit of recovering any carbines that could be found from battle sites. Some of them worked, and some of them didn’t. The working ones were exchanged by the armorers for any carbines turned in not working. An attempt was always made -- successfully more often than not -- to repair damaged or jammed carbines. That left more weapons than cavalrymen available to use them. Most of those were turned over to some of the Union freed prisoners who looked combat-ready.

A troop came in with the message that the infantry had carried the trenches at Columbus. The army would march the day after the message left, and would arrive two or three days later.

Sam considered his manpower. He’d started off from Savannah with something between 13,000 and 14,000 cavalrymen. Losses, most but not all in the trenches before Augusta, had lowered that to a little more than 11,000. Then 800 or so had been sent back as part of the escort to Savannah. Another 2 regiments, say 1,500 men, had been left with Butler for his purposes. He now commanded fewer than 9,000 cavalrymen in trenches.

There were also nearly 20,000 freed prisoners, in all states of health and all states of morale.

One of these was a brigadier general, Carl Davis. He was senior to Sam, as almost any brigadier general must be. They had agreed that he was in command of the ex-prisoners, and Sam was in command of the cavalry. Sam left the ex-prisoners, who were numerous but quite badly armed, and one regiment on the eastern side of the river. He had eight other regiments on the Alabama side. He got the ex-prisoner brigadier to organize, as well as he could, a full regiment of ex-prisoners armed with carbines as a reserve on the Georgia side to rush across the bridge and help any unit of his cavalry when he needed it. He hoped desperately that he wouldn’t need it.

In the night, Confederate cavalry arrived outside the lines on the Alabama side. In the morning, they attacked from both the north side of the Union position and the south side. Sam had put four regiments in the north trenches, three in the southern trenches, and kept one for a reserve. When the attack from the south died down shortly, he decided he had made the right decision. The first attack was on horseback, but the rest were lines of men running forward brandishing revolvers.

A few times, the charges reached the first line of trenches in places. Never did it reach the second line.

At nightfall, the charges ended. After a wait to see that the pause was genuine, Sam authorized short expeditions of a few troopers at a time to recover fallen revolvers. He pulled one regiment at a time out of the trenches and replaced them with the one from the Georgia side and then with one from the southern trenches. He felt that the regiment that had been nearest the river had had the least heavy day. He couldn’t replace it.

Each company in the trenches sent messengers to fetch their suppers, and Sam saw that the cooks gave them enough rations. He got the recovered revolvers to General Davis for distribution in the morning.

In the time before dawn, they heard something happening to the north of their position. In the early morning light, they saw that Confederate infantry had arrived to reinforce the cavalry. When the sun had been up an hour, the first wave of infantry attacked. The bayonets looked wicked, but they caused less damage than the revolvers had. As the charge was crashing down on the northern lines, Sam saw other infantry arrive still farther out.

Sam got more ammunition delivered to the front lines. The rebel infantry got almost to the first line, but broke under the continuous fire of the carbines. They left hundreds of dead and seriously wounded when they ran.

As soon as they were out of the way, another charge of the revolver-firing dismounted Confederate cavalry began. Then came a charge of another group of infantry. The carbines grew hot in the men’s hands as one charge followed another. There was no time for midday dinner, and when the sun went down on the temporarily-unoccupied field to their front, it was covered with dead and wounded Confederates.

Sam sent a lieutenant forward with a handkerchief on a stick. When the lieutenant was stopped, he proposed that they cease fire while soldiers from both sides were permitted to gather up the dead and wounded. They would establish a line, midway between the sides, and soldiers from each side would care for the men closer to them than the line.

The reply was not immediate, and the lieutenant returned. Not that much later, though, a Confederate came to their lines accepting it. Both sides put forward men -- Sam sent only officers, since he didn’t trust the Confederates to treat the colored troops fairly.

They gathered up many dead, nearly as many wounded, and a quantity of weapons. They buried the Confederate dead in a separate place from their own dead. They used their prisoners -- mostly guards from Camp Andersonville -- to bury the Confederates. Sam again rotated the troops, which meant that everybody who went into the northern trenches had been there a day before. Before rotating in, they got to exchange any weapons which had caused trouble for fresh carbines from the repair sector.

Sam transferred the captured weapons to the former prisoners. From those most eager to get into the fight, he recruited 400 armed with revolvers. They sat in the front trench with their backs to the enemy until those got close.

The attack resumed the next morning with what looked like fresh infantry. When they got close, the officers called, “Six guns up!” The ex-prisoners rose, aimed their revolvers at the chests of approaching Confederates, and fired as rapidly as they could.

They were using Confederate ammunition, and there were some misfires; even in that situation, some bullets were coming their way and a few hit. On average, each of them got off five shots, half of them hit, and half of the hits killed or disabled. The larger number of cavalrymen with their repeating carbines killled many more, but the new group rising to face them increased the Confederates’ shock. The remainder of the charging division broke and ran. Some of the following division tried to stop the retreat; some parted to let them through; a few joined in.

That made the next wave disorderly. Meanwhile, the revolver men sat again and reloaded. Cocking the revolver with the other hand was much faster than using the lever on the carbine. Reloading the carbine was, however, much faster.

Again, the attacks were so recurrent that the men couldn’t eat their midday meal. Just after noon, however, Sam received notice that cavalry reinforcements had arrived from Savannah. One of the regiments he had told off to accompany the main party to Columbus had guided them in. He crossed the bridge to meet them. Altogether there were five regiments, three that he could draw upon to fill all his personnel holes, the one from Columbus, and one that had escorted the wounded and prisoners from Augusta to Savanah.

That last had already filled its holes. He authorized the colonels of the regiment from Columbus and the one which had been in the front trenches for two days to do the same. This would create imbalances, since 3,600 men were not nearly enough to fill all the holes. Still, he wanted to use those regiments as fresh ones come sundown. He returned to the Alabama side and continuing bedlam.

Pushed as they were, however, his men held. When the attacks seemed over, he sent another emissary to renew the temporary cease fire. This time, they picked up the wounded and all weapons. They left the dead. Tomorrow, the Confederates -- even the first wave of the morning -- could charge over the bodies of their own dead.

With the escort regiment, the regiment from Columbus, and the three regiments from the trenches which faced south -- regiments which had seen no action that day -- he could replace all the regiments which had faced north that day. He required from them an accounting of current effective strength by rank before they went to sleep. He made sure, though, that they got two meals worth of rations.

With those reports, and the counts of the replacement regiments, he had every replacement scheduled by dawn. He got them to their new regiments, which for a thousand of them meant crossing the bridge, before noon. Again, wave after wave hit the north-facing trenches. Again, nothing hit the south-facing trenches.

In the late morning, infantry began to arrive. The brigadier was junior to Warren, and had strict orders to report to him. Sam explained that the hardest-hit area was being too hard hit to undergo relief. One regiment, though, was set to digging rifle pits supporting the north-facing trenches. They had high breastworks, and the men were to fire over the heads of the cavalry and into the charging confederates.

After dinner before midday -- they’d been quick marching for a day and a half -- the other regiments relieved the troops in the south-facing trenches. These went to a late dinner.

Again, at dusk, they had the cease fire. They gathered wounded and weapons. Now, there were 4,000 ex-prisoners armed and reasonably well organized. More infantry had come in through the afternoon, and Sam handed over responsibility for the trenches to the infantry and a newly-arrived division commander.

The horses were all on the Georgia side of the river, and after a long sleep and a late breakfast, the troopers saw to their own.

General Butler arrived. When he’d reviewed the situation and praised the actions of the cavalry, Sam made a suggestion. At the beginning, there had been a Confederate cavalry force to the south, and it had attacked. It had, as any force standing still would by this time in the war, dug some trenches. There were still some men there, but they had been inactive. Sam suggested that it was worth a foray -- as it had not been when the foray would have been by his troops -- to dig them out. The Union force could take over those trenches and extend them. That would provide space for more of the Union troops now arriving to move to the Alabama bank of the river.

Butler could see his reasoning.

Sam went to urge the armorers on. His troops had lost men, but they had been careful to bring their weapons back. The armorers were now checking those carbines. Those which worked perfectly were set aside to replace any weapon of the living troops which didn’t. Those which had problems were set aside for repair. Once that task was finished, the good carbines were handed out, and repairs began on the others.

At dawn the next day, the Confederate charges began on the north trenches. Minutes later, a mass of men swept out of the south-facing trenches. They were met with revolver fire, but some of it was at too-great range. It cut down many of the attackers, but enough swept over the first line of trenches to flood the defenders. Moments later, the second line was breached. Faced with that flood, the Confederates turned to run. Some of the Union soldiers had carried loaded rifles and shot them. The victory wasn’t bloodless, but it had driven off that force. More troops ran across the bridge, and a new connecting trench was begun.

The next morning before dawn, the cavalry led their horses across the bridge. A staging area had been prepared for them, and they silently gathered and mounted up. When the first morning attack on the north trenches had begun, the cavalry silently rode out. They trotted two miles west, and then Sam led them north. The Confederates had used artillery in Columbus, but none had been seen in the battlefield they had left. They were looking to see if it was on the way.

The road by the river still held the supplies for Forrest, and those supplies were guarded. Then, several hours riding north, their scouts saw the artillery train. It had infantry guards, and the gunners were armed. The horsemen firing repeating carbines, however, soon drove off both groups. They found the powder and piled a major amount under every gun carriage. Sam himself ran the trail of powder from one gun carriage to another. Then he ran another trail from the center to his mount twenty yards away. He dropped a match in the powder, swung into the saddle, and galloped Jack away until he heard the first explosion. The explosions continued, but they had done their jobs.

He led his force west again until they came to a road that would handle them two abreast.

The roads in Alabama were no straighter than the roads in Georgia. Their destination, Pensacola, was roughly southwest of them, but it was on the other side of the Escambia River which ran roughly north-south. Someday, the Confederates would figure that the only way to stop them was to destroy the bridges as they had destroyed the bridges at Columbia. Then the Army of the Savannah would have to build new bridges or ford the streams. They could do either, but not easily. The further north they were, the easier the streams -- which in the country they were to cross all flowed towards the Gulf of Mexico -- were to ford. Montgomery, source of any troops to attack them, was to the north of their route.