Military Reminiscences of the Civil War (Vol.1&2). Jacob D. Cox
take the brunt of every encounter. The young regulars who asked leave to accept commissions in state regiments were therefore refused, and were ordered to their own subaltern positions and posts. There can be no doubt that the true policy would have been to encourage the whole of this younger class to enter at once the volunteer service. They would have been the field officers of the new regiments, and would have impressed discipline and system upon the organization from the beginning. The Confederacy really profited by having no regular army. They gave to the officers who left our service, it is true, commissions in their so-called "provisional army," to encourage them in the assurance that they would have permanent military positions if the war should end in the independence of the South; but this was only a nominal organization, and their real army was made up (as ours turned out practically to be) from the regiments of state volunteers. Less than a year afterward we changed our policy, but it was then too late to induce many of the regular officers to take regimental positions in the volunteer troops. I hesitate to declare that this did not turn out for the best; for although the organization of our army would have been more rapidly perfected, there are other considerations which have much weight. The army would not have been the popular thing it was, its close identification with the people's movement would have been weakened, and it perhaps would not so readily have melted again into the mass of the nation at the close of the war.
Among the first of the young regular officers who came to Columbus was Alexander McCook. He was ordered there as inspection and mustering officer, and one of my earliest duties was to accompany him to Camp Jackson to inspect the cooked rations which the contractors were furnishing the new troops. I warmed to his earnest, breezy way, and his business-like activity in performing his duty. As a makeshift, before camp equipage and cooking utensils could be issued to the troops, the contractors placed long trestle tables under an improvised shed, and the soldiers came to these and ate, as at a country picnic. It was not a bad arrangement to bridge over the interval between home life and regular soldiers' fare, and the outcry about it at the time was senseless, as all of us know who saw real service afterward. McCook bustled along from table to table, sticking a long skewer into a boiled ham, smelling of it to see if the interior of the meat was tainted; breaking open a loaf of bread and smelling of it to see if it was sour; examining the coffee before it was put into the kettles, and after it was made; passing his judgment on each, in prompt, peremptory manner as we went on. The food was, in the main, excellent, though, as a way of supporting an army, it was quite too costly to last long.
While mustering in the recruits, McCook was elected colonel of the First Regiment Ohio Volunteers, which had, I believe, already gone to Washington. He was eager to accept, and telegraphed to Washington for permission. Adjutant-General Thomas replied that it was not the policy of the War Department to permit it. McCook cut the knot in gallant style. He immediately tendered his resignation in the regular army, taking care to say that he did so, not to avoid his country's service or to aid her enemies, but because he believed he could serve her much more effectively by drilling and leading a regiment of Union volunteers. He notified the governor of his acceptance of the colonelcy, and his coup-de-main was a success; for the department did not like to accept a resignation under such circumstances, and he had the exceptional luck to keep his regular commission and gain prestige as well, by his bold energy in the matter.
Orlando Poe came about the same time, for all this was occurring in the last ten days of April. He was a lieutenant of topographical engineers, and was stationed with General (then Captain) Meade at Detroit, doing duty upon the coast survey of the lakes. He was in person the model for a young athlete, tall, dark, and strong, with frank, open countenance, looking fit to repeat his ancestor Adam Poe's adventurous conflicts with the Indians as told in the frontier traditions of Ohio. He too was eager for service; but the same rule was applied to him, and the argument that the engineers would be especially necessary to the army organization kept him for a time from insisting upon taking volunteer service, as McCook had done. He was indefatigable in his labors, assisting the governor in organizing the regiments, smoothing the difficulties constantly arising from lack of familiarity with the details of the administrative service of the army, and giving wise advice to the volunteer officers who made his acquaintance. I asked him, one day, in my pursuit of practical ideas from all who I thought could help me, what he would advise as the most useful means of becoming familiar with my duties. Study the Army Regulations, said he, as if it were your Bible! There was a world of wisdom in this: much more than I appreciated at the time, though it set me earnestly to work in a right direction. An officer in a responsible command, who had already a fair knowledge of tactics, might trust his common sense for guidance in an action on the field; but the administrative duties of the army as a machine must be thoroughly learned, if he would hope to make the management of its complicated organization an easy thing to him.
Major Sidney Burbank came to take McCook's place as mustering officer: a grave, earnest man, of more age and more varied experience than the men I have named. Captain John Pope also visited the governor for consultation, and possibly others came also, though I saw them only in passing, and did not then get far in making their acquaintance.
1 Afterward aide-de-camp and acting judge-advocate on McClellan's staff.
2 Breckinridge did not formally join the Confederacy till September, but his accord with the secessionists was well known.
3 I have treated this subject somewhat more fully in a paper in the "Atlantic Monthly" for March, 1892, "Why the Men of '61 fought for the Union."
4 I am not aware that McClellan's plan of campaign has been published. Scott's answer to it is given in General Townsend's "Anecdotes of the Civil War," p. 260. It was, with other communications from Governor Dennison, carried to Washington by Hon. A. F. Perry of Cincinnati, an intimate friend of the governor, who volunteered as special messenger, the mail service being unsafe. See a paper by Mr. Perry in "Sketches of War History" (Ohio Loyal Legion), vol. iii. p. 345.
CHAPTER II
CAMP DENNISON
Laying out the camp--Rosecrans as engineer--A comfortless night--Waking to new duties--Floors or no floors for the huts--Hardee's Tactics--The water-supply--Colonel Tom. Worthington--Joshua Sill--Brigades organized--Bates's brigade--Schleich's--My own--McClellan's purpose--Division organization--Garfield disappointed--Camp routine--Instruction and drill--Camp cookery--Measles--Hospital barn--Sisters of Charity--Ferment over re-enlistment--Musters by Gordon Granger--"Food for powder"--Brigade staff--De Villiers--"A Captain of Calvary"--The "Bloody Tinth"--Almost a row--Summoned to the field.
On the 29th of April I was ordered by McClellan to proceed next morning to Camp Dennison, with the Eleventh and half of the Third Ohio regiments. The day was a fair one, and when about noon our railway train reached the camping ground, it seemed an excellent place for our work. The drawback was that very little of the land was in meadow or pasture, part being in wheat and part in Indian corn, which was just coming up. Captain Rosecrans met us, as McClellan's engineer (later the well-known general), coming from Cincinnati with a train-load of lumber. He had with him his compass and chain, and by the help of a small detail of men soon laid off the ground for the two regimental camps, and the general lines of the whole encampment for a dozen regiments. It was McClellan's purpose to put in two brigades on the west side of the railway, and one on the east. My own brigade camp was assigned to the west side, and nearest to Cincinnati. The men of the two regiments shouldered their pine boards and carried them up to the line of the company streets, which were close to the hills skirting the valley, and which opened into the parade and drill ground along the railway.
A general plan was given to the company officers by which the huts should be made uniform in size and shape. The huts of each company faced each other, three or four on each