History of the Nineteenth Army Corps

Chapter Xxxiv: the Grant in Temporary Command of Getty's Division

is Brigadier-General Lewis Grant, not U. S. Grant as in the rest of the book.

The following changes have been made in the Appendix:

Military ranks have been abbreviated.

Footnotes have been re-numbered and headings repeated by section instead of page. The footnotes were all italics.

The box rules and period leaders have been removed from the Losses in Battle tables and the headings "Officers" and "Enlisted men", set vertically in the original, have been abbreviated "O" and "E". Text has been extended across columns for legibility.

HISTORY OF THE NINETEENTH ARMY CORPS

RICHARD B. IRWIN

Formerly Lieutenant-Colonel U. S. Volunteers, Assistant Adjutant-General of the Corps and of the Department of the Gulf

G. P. Putnam's Sons New York 27 West Twenty-Third Street London 24 Bedford Street, Strand The Knickerbocker Press 1892

Copyright, 1892 by G. P. Putnam's Sons

Electrotyped, Printed, and Bound by The Knickerbocker Press, New York G. P. Putnam's Sons

IN LOVING REMEMBRANCE OF THEIR LATE COMMANDER MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM HEMSLEY EMORY AND OF THE MANY COMRADES WHO LAID DOWN THEIR LIVES IN THE SERVICE OF THEIR COUNTRY THIS HISTORY IS INSCRIBED BY THE SURVIVING MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY OF THE NINETEENTH ARMY CORPS

CONTENTS.

Chapter. Introductory I. New Orleans II. The First Attempt on Vicksburg III. Baton Rouge IV. La Fourche V. Banks in Command VI. Organizing the Corps VII. More Ways than One VIII. Farragut Passes Port Hudson IX. The Teche X. Bisland XI. Irish Bend XII. Opelousas XIII. Banks and Grant XIV. Alexandria XV. Back to Port Hudson XVI. The Twenty-Seventh of May XVII. The Fourteenth of June XVIII. Unvexed to the Sea XIX. Harrowing La Fourche XX. In Summer Quarters XXI. A Foothold in Texas XXII. Winter Quarters XXIII. The Red River XXIV. Sabine Cross-Roads XXV. Pleasant Hill XXVI. Grand Ecore XXVII. The Crossing of Cane River XXVIII. The Dam XXIX. Last Days in Louisiana XXX. On the Potomac XXXI. In the Shenandoah XXXII. The Opequon XXXIII. Fisher's Hill XXXIV. Cedar Creek XXXV. Victory and Home

Appendix: Rosters Losses in Battle Officers Killed or Mortally Wounded Port Hudson Forlorn Hope Articles of Capitulation Note on Early's Strength Index

MAPS AND PLANS.

Map of Louisiana. Sheet I. " " " " II. " " " " III. Battle Plan of Bisland, April 12-13, 1863 Battle Plan of Irish Bend, April 14, 1863 Battle Plan of Port Hudson Map of Louisiana. Sheet IV. Battle Plan of Sabine Cross-Roads, April 8, 1864. From General Emory's Map Battle Plan of Pleasant Hill, April 9, 1864. From General Emory's Map Battle Plan of Cane River Crossing or Monett's Bluff, April 23, 1864. From General Emory's Map The Red River Dam Map of Shenandoah Valley Campaign. From Major W. F. Tiemann's "History of the 159th New York" Battle Plan of Opequon, September 19, 1864. From the Official Map, 1873 Battle Plan of Fisher's Hill, September 22, 1864. From the Official Map Battle Plan of Cedar Creek, October 19, 1864. From the Official Map of 1873

INTRODUCTORY

The history of the Nineteenth Army Corps, like that of by far the greater number of the organizations of like character, in which were arrayed the great armies of volunteers that took up arms to maintain the Union, is properly the history of all the troops that at any time belonged to the corps or served within its geographical limits.

To be complete, then, the narrative my comrades have asked me to write must go back to the earliest service of these troops, at a period before the corps itself was formally established, and must continue on past the time when the earlier territorial organization became merged or lost and the main body of the corps was sent into the Shenandoah, down to the peace, and the final muster of the last regiment.

If hitherto less known and thus less considered than the proud record of those great corps of the Armies of the Potomac, of the Tennessee, and of the Cumberland, on whom in the fortune of war fell the heat and burthen of so many pitched battles, whose colors bear the names of so many decisive victories, yet the story of the Nineteenth Army Corps is one whose simple facts suffice for all that need to told or claimed of valor, of achievement, of sacrifice, or of patient endurance. I shall, therefore, attempt neither eulogy nor apology, nor shall I feel called upon to undertake to criticise the actions or the failures of the living or the dead, save where such criticism may prove to be an essential part of the narrative. From the brows of other soldiers, no one of us could ever wish to pluck the wreaths so dearly won, so honorably worn; yet, since the laurel grows wild on every hill-side in this favored land, we may without trespass be permitted to gather a single spray or two to decorate the sacred places where beneath the cypresses and the magnolias of the lowlands of Louisiana, or under the green turf among the mountains of Virginia, reposes all that was mortal of so many thousands of our brave and beloved comrades.

THE NINETEENTH ARMY CORPS.

CHAPTER I.. New Orleans.

NEW ORLEANS.

The opening of the Mississippi and the capture of New Orleans formed important parts of the first comprehensive plan of campaign, conceived and proposed by Lieutenant-General Scott soon after the outbreak of the war. When McClellan was called to Washington to command the Army of the Potomac, one of his earliest communications to the President set forth in general terms his plans for the suppression of the Rebellion. Of these plans, also, the capture of New Orleans formed an integral and important part. Both Scott and McClellan contemplated a movement down the river by a strong column. However nothing had been done by either toward carrying out this project, when, in September, 1861, the Navy Department took up the idea of an attack on New Orleans from the sea.

At the time of the secession of Louisiana, New Orleans was not only the first city in wealth, population, and importance in the seceded States, but the sixth in all the Union. With a population of nearly 170,000 souls, she carried on an export trade larger than that of any other port in the country, and enjoyed a commerce in magnitude and profit second only to that of New York. The year just ended had witnessed the production of the largest crop of cotton ever grown in America, fully two fifths of which passed through the presses and paid toll to the factors of New Orleans. The receipts of cotton at this port for the year 1860-1861 were but little less than 2,000,000 bales, valued at nearly $100,000,000. Of sugar, mainly the production of the State of Louisiana, the receipts considerably exceeded 250,000 tons, valued at more than $25,000,000; the total receipts of products of all kinds amounted to nearly $200,000,000. The exports were valued at nearly $110,000,000; the imports at nearly $23,000,000. It is doubtful if any other crop in any part of the world then paid profits at once so large and so uniform to all persons interested as the cotton and sugar of Louisiana. If cotton were not exactly king, as it was in those days the fashion to assert, there could be no doubt that cotton was a banker, and a generous banker for New Orleans. The factors of Carondelet Street grew rich upon the great profits that the planters of the "coast," as the shores of the river are called, paid them, almost without feeling it, while the planters came, nearly every winter, to New Orleans to pass the season and to spend, in a round of pleasure, at least a portion of the net proceeds of the account sales. In the transport of these products nearly two thousand sailing ships and steamers were engaged, and in the town itself or its suburb of Algiers, on the opposite bank, were to be found all the appliances and facilities necessary for the conduct of so extensive a commerce. These, especially the work-shops and factories, and the innumerable river and bayou steamers that thronged the levee, were destined to prove of the greatest military value, at first to the Confederacy, and later to the forces of the Union. For food and fuel, however, New Orleans was largely dependent upon the North and West. Finally, beside her importance as the guardian of the gates of the Mississippi, New Orleans had a direct military value as the basis of any operations destined for the control or defence of the Mississippi River.

About the middle of November the plan took definite shape, and on the 23d of December Farragut received preparatory orders to take command of the West Gulf Squadron and the naval portion of the expedition destined for the reduction of New Orleans. Farragut received his final orders on the 20th of January, 1862, and immediately afterward hoisted his flag on the sloop-of-war Hartford.

The land portion of the expedition was placed under the command of Major-General Benjamin F. Butler. On the 10th and 12th of September, 1861, Butler had been authorized by the War Department to raise, organize, arm, uniform, and equip, in the New England States, such troops as he might judge fit for the purpose, to make an expedition along the eastern shore of Maryland and Virginia to Cape Charles; but early in November, before Butler's forces were quite ready, these objects were accomplished by a brigade under Lockwood, sent from Baltimore by Dix. On the 23d of November the advance of Butler's expedition sailed from Portland, Maine, for Ship Island, in the steamer Constitution, and on the 2d of December, in reporting the sailing, Butler submitted to the War Department his plan for invading the coast of Texas and the ultimate capture of New Orleans.

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