5
On October 20, 1863, as Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman moved to cross the Tennessee River en route to the relief of besieged Chattanooga, his superior, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, then at Nashville, had, with Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside, Knoxville’s Federal commander, focused their eyes on the supply possibilities of the Cumberland River. A major water artery into the Tennessee capital, the lower portion of the stream had been a significant Union transportation route from the north for almost two years. That day attention would move to a somewhat less-plied section of the waterway, the Upper Cumberland beyond Nashville.
In a lengthy telegram to Grant, Burnside set forth in writing the disposition of his Knoxville army, as well as the tightness of his supplies. An attached logistical review concluded with a sentence that would come to have a significant impact on the U.S. Navy’s local mission: “I have already taken steps to repair the road from Clinton to the mouth of the Big South Fork on the Cumberland to which point stores can be transported by water as soon as that river becomes navigable which may not be ’till January.”
Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside, USA. Having lost the December 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia, while leading the Army of the Potomac, Burnside was sent to Cincinnati in March 1863 to command the Department of the Ohio. After coordinating the Federal response to Morgan’s Raid in July, he moved against Knoxville, Tennessee, occupying it on September 3. During the fall, logistics became a significant problem for his force, even a Confederate corps under Lt. Gen. James Longstreet from Chattanooga briefly besieged his garrison. Burnside’s facial hair and high, bell-crowned felt hat were distinctive. He is shown here mounted near a Napoleon field piece (Miller’s Photographic History of the Civil War, v. 2).
The Cumberland River was a major source of waterborne transportation from the earliest days of Kentucky-Tennessee settlement, and this demand intensified during the Civil War. From Nashville to Point Isabel (now Burnside, Kentucky) at the mouth of Big South Fork was 358 miles, but trips along the narrow, winding Upper Cumberland, which was plagued by shoals and bars, were usually broken into segments. From the capital city to Carthage, a valuable supply point at the mouth of the Obey River, was 150 miles. From Carthage to Creelsboro, Kentucky (then the busiest midway upper-river trading community and now a ghost town), was 185 miles and from Creelsboro to Point Isabel was 85 miles. Low water made steamboating difficult between June and November, though during the remainder of the year, brave pilots could penetrate into the tributary rivers. The broader Lower Cumberland flows 192 miles from Nashville to its mouth at Smithland, Kentucky, passing the growing community of Clarksville 50 miles away.
Also on October 20 Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs, then in Louisville, wired War Secretary Edwin Stanton with news that steamers had started from the Kentucky city for Nashville with forage and supplies. “The Navy Department should order gunboats at once into the Cumberland,” he added, “to convoy and protect our steamboats.” These were in addition to those already on duty. Soon the army’s quartermasters were sending an ever increasing amount of goods, which were stockpiled both in Nashville’s warehouses and at Carthage. Some percentage was sent by rail to Chattanooga, and some would eventually be forwarded to the mouth of Big South Fork and then hauled overland to Burnside in Knoxville.
As was the case at the time of the Stone’s River battle earlier in the year, significantly larger steamer convoys were now reintroduced on the Lower Cumberland to get the bulk of Federal supplies to Nashville. After departing Smithland, Kentucky, these were assembled or concentrated, often over the period of a week, at Fort Donelson, Dover, and Clarksville. During times of crisis such as these, unescorted steaming was usually prohibited.
With an average of 50 transports for every available gunboat, the USN challenge to get them through was daunting. Not only had the merchantmen to be kept in line, but numerous bands of local Confederate irregulars, shooting from ambush along the shoreline, were a constant problem. Special attention had to be paid to known hiding spots such as at wooding points (locations along the river where fuel supplies were available) like Jackson’s Woodyard just downstream from Fort Donelson or the choke point at Harpeth Shoals.
In addition to “bushwhackers,” the route was filled with natural obstructions, including sandbars and shoals, such as Ingram Shoals, also near Fort Donelson. The most difficult part of the Lower Cumberland passage from Louisville occurred after steamers passed Clarksville. Harpeth Shoals, just 20 miles from Nashville, presented such a navigational challenge during the dry season that most steamers, deeply laden, could not pass over. Thus their cargoes had to be off-loaded and transferred to smaller transports which came out from Nashville to cover the final leg.
To assist in protecting the transfer point and the river upstream and down from Nashville, the U.S. Army Quartermaster Department at Nashville utilized several small military gunboats not under naval authority. Originally, there were at least four, though we can only identify three in any detail.
Named for a Nashville assistant quartermaster, the W. H. Sidell was an old shallow-draft ferryboat outfitted in late 1862 by order of Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans to provide cover for cargoes on the Cumberland stretch between Harpeth Shoals and Nashville. With minimal protection and mounting three or four field pieces, Army Lt. T. William Van Dorn’s “impromptu” craft—in the opinion of Rear Adm. David D. Porter—escorted a large convoy into Nashville from Clarksville on January 8, 1863. Approaching the head of Harpeth Shoals from Ashland City six days later, she found the steamers Hastings, Trio and Parthenia at a landing. Hailed from shore, the gunboat approached only to be fired upon by Confederate soldiers, to whom Van Dorn surrendered. He was held, but all others taken by the raiders—except African Americans—were paroled or freed while the vessel was torched. A local Tennessee lady, Lucy Virginia French, wrote in her journal several days afterwards: “The late raid of Wheeler and Forrest on the Cumberland below Nashville is the talk now—cavalry capturing transports and a gun boat is as good as Forrest’s men taking a battery at Murfreesboro last summer with shot guns!”1
Attack on the Hastings, Trio and Parthenia. During bad weather in January 1863, Confederate raiders simultaneously captured three Union steamers on the Cumberland River. Coming upon the scene, the U.S. Army gunboat W. H. Sidell was also taken, leading some Northern leaders to initially believe her a USN loss (Annals of the Army of the Cumberland).
Due to low water, two of the three remaining military craft were held in Nashville after September. We know nothing about the Hagen, which was grounded at Clarksville undergoing repairs. She apparently remained out of the picture for the remainder of the war. We would hear a good deal about the other two.
Purchased by the U.S. Quartermaster Department in 1861 for $16,000, the new Wellsville, Ohio–built 129-ton stern-wheeler Silver Lake No. 2 was similar to the W. H. Sidell. Under the command of Lt. John S. Roberts of the 22nd Indiana Infantry with her veteran captain John S. Devenny as pilot and crewed by many men from the Steubenville, Ohio, region, she was now guarding the wharves and bridges at the capital city. Roberts was characterized as seemingly “a useless drunkard who missed two battles while too intoxicated to issue commands.” While his boat was at Gainesboro, Tennessee, later on in 1864, he would be accused of raping an African American woman; tried, he was acquitted and allowed an honorable discharge.
Likewise a stern-wheeler, the 53-ton Newsboy, was built at Brownsville, Pennsylvania, in the spring of 1862. Chartered by the U.S. Quartermaster Department, she hauled military supplies from that August 15 to 25, and again on November 16, just before her purchase by the government for $14,000. Sent to Nashville, she too received plank armor and a single cannon. Like the Allegheny Belle and other improvised army gunboats, the Newsboy was also undoubtedly protected with hay and cotton bales. Capt. Simon Perkins, Jr., the city’s assistant head quartermaster, had charge of all three of these ersatz gunboats.2
A hundred miles south as Sherman’s men continued across the Tennessee River and the defenders of Chattanooga succeeded in opening a successful, if minuscule, “cracker line” to provide themselves supplies by water. Grant, Burnside, and, in Washington, D.C., U.S. Army overall commander Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck were all discussing by wire the possibilities of the Upper Cumberland as a logistical route to Knoxville. Previous thinking concerning the transfer of goods from Nashville to Chattanooga and then up the Tennessee to Knoxville was impractical. Arriving goods had to be off-loaded from steamers at Kingston in western Knox County and then forwarded overland 30 miles via the Kingston Pike, even then a possible invasion route for Confederates under Lt. Gen. James Longstreet approaching from near Chattanooga.
Knoxville from the south side of the Tennessee River. As Sherman’s men continued across the Tennessee River and the defenders of Chattanooga succeeded in opening a successful, if minuscule, “cracker line” to provide themselves supplies by water, Federal generals discussed employing the Upper Cumberland River as a logistical route to Knoxville. Previous thinking concerning the transfer of goods from Nashville to Chattanooga and then up the Upper Tennessee River to Knoxville was impractical both before and even after Lt. Gen. James Longstreet’s approach (Library of Congress).
On October 29, Halleck messaged Grant that the railroad from Nashville could not supply both Chattanooga and Knoxville. “Cannot supplies for Burnside be sent up the Cumberland to Burkesville [Kentucky] or above on flats towed by light steamers,” he wondered. After all, Burkesville was only a hundred miles northwest of Kingston, to which goods could be hauled overland “on a hard mountain road” and then forwarded.
The next morning, Grant suggested to Halleck that Carthage was probably “the best point.” From there supplies could be sent across, via Sparta and Crossville, to Kingston and forwarded to Knoxville. Just to be sure, he wired Burnside asking him if he could “get supplies from Carthage if sent there by boat?” The Knoxville commander did not immediately reply, but his counterpart, Maj. Gen. George Thomas commanding at Chattanooga, now chimed in. His full and optimistic description provides an interesting review of geographic opportunities and challenges that failed to take into account the exigencies of weather, river stages, or Southern irregulars:
The best wagon route for General Burnside to supply his army at Kingston will be from a depot at Carthage. The road from that place to Kingston runs along the eastern bank of Caney Fork through a fine forage region from Carthage to Sparta…. The road from Carthage to Kingston is graded and runs over a Barren region generally hard gravel and firm. The Caney Fork is also navigable as far as Sligo Ferry in the winter, which will decrease the land transportation to about sixty miles.
Otherwise occupied, Burnside was unable to inform Grant that he could not pick up goods at Carthage because most of his wagons had already been sent up to Camp Nelson in Kentucky for stores. The Knoxville commander suggested an alternative. “If the Cumberland is sufficiently high to allow boats to go to mouth of Big South Fork, it would be well for some of the light draft gunboats and steamboats to tow up to that point a million of rations on flats.” Once the supplies were in place, they could be tied to the shore, covered with tarpaulins, and guarded by troops he would send until a wagon train could be gotten together.3
From Chattanooga, Maj. Gen. Grant now wired Knoxville advising that he would quickly contact Lt. Col. Theodore S. Bowers, assistant adjutant general at Nashville, to ascertain the workability of Burnside’s suggestion. If it was doable, the capital city’s newly arrived chief quartermaster, Col. James L. Donaldson, would arrange for transportation upstream of 300,000 rations of salt meat and a million of other rations. Once the goods were aboard and well covered with tarpaulins, the boats would go up, leave their barges, and return.
Late that afternoon, Bowers notified Grant that navigation was practicable to Big South Fork, four million rations were on hand, and six light draught steamboats were lying at the wharf. The resupply idea all along supposed that a South Fork convoy would be protected by army quartermaster gunboats and not USN tinclads, which were busily escorting convoys on the Ohio and Lower Cumberland. It was realized that, although Union cavalry patrols had occasionally penetrated the Upper Cumberland region during the year, the area was far from pacific. Undoubtedly, a conversation with Capt. Perkins revealed that only one was presently available. “Would it not be well,” Bowers inquired, “to send an officer by steamboat tomorrow … to ask the Navy for additional gunboats?” We have no record of how or whether that visit was made, but inter-service communication concerning the idea would cause all kinds of difficulty.4
Maj. Gen. Grant telegraphed RAdm. Porter on November 6, wondering, “Can you not send one or two more light-draft gunboats to Nashville?” “I want to send some steamboats with rations by south fork of the Cumberland … they cannot go without convoys … there is an absolute necessity that rations should be sent by this route.” Grant then informed his Nashville assistant adjutant of the message to the Cairo naval station and simultaneously ordered final preparations for the steamers’ departure. Bowers’ deputy, Capt. Sidney A. (“Sid”) Stockdale of the 103rd Illinois Volunteer Infantry, detailed to handle the details and arrange convoy departure times. When all was ready, Grant and Burnside were both to be notified; Burnside was alerted and told, “If the Cumberland does not fall before barges can be got ready and loaded, they will go.”
The water level of the narrow Upper Cumberland, filled with sharp turns that frustrated even small steamers, was now so shallow that the barge lift had to be canceled. Stockdale had the stores redistributed aboard the previously tasked steamboats, and also arranged for their designated escort, the Newsboy, to be outfitted with a second 12-pounder gun.
Brig. Gen. John A. Rawlings, Lt. Gen. Grant, and Lt. Col. Theodore S. Bowers. From Chattanooga during the campaign, Maj. Gen. Grant ordered Lt. Col. Bowers, his Nashville-based assistant adjutant general, to handle the arrangements to get supplies for Maj. Gen. Burnside to Big South Fork on the Upper Cumberland River. Inter-service communications with the USN over the matter caused all sorts of difficulties and hard feelings. This photograph of adjutants Rawlings and Bowers with Grant was taken later at City Point, Virginia (Library of Congress).
News was received by Bowers and Stockdale that three tinclads and a naval convoy were “at Clarksville on their way up.” All was in readiness by the afternoon of November 9; it was only required that the convoy show up, after which the steamers could leave for Big South Fork under navy protection. The convoy duly arrived at Nashville on November 10—but without its escort vessels.
For whatever reason, Lt. Cmdr. Le Roy Fitch, the Eighth District commander who was leading this escort leg from Smithland, had not learned of the army’s up-the-river plans. Mail and telegraphic communication with his headquarters was sporadic of late, so when his charges were safely within a few miles of the capital city the previous day, the unadvised officer sent them on in while he took the three accompanying tinclads back to base at the mouth of the Cumberland. As the merchantmen put into the levee, the concerned Bowers ordered Stockdale to take the Newsboy and ascend the river to find “the naval officer in charge of the gunboat flotilla.”5
Stockdale did not find Fitch until the Newsboy dropped anchor at Smithland, where he learned that, due to communication failures, the navy man was completely ignorant of the planned military convoy. What Grant, Bowers, and Stockdale were seeking was a special operation outside Fitch’s mandate or instructions, one which would, by diverting gunboats, make it very difficult to properly run the regular Louisville convoys up and down the river. Before accepting the dangerous extra job and thereby violating his superior’s long-standing convoy escort rules, he sought clarification. Volunteering to obtain it, Stockdale went to Cairo aboard the Newsboy and, after personally interviewing Porter, returned to Fitch with specific orders on November 11.
Following the return of the military gunboat to Nashville from Smithland, she was ordered to transverse the length of the Upper Cumberland, beginning on November 13, to ascertain the depth of water and navigational potential for the special convoy. Over the next two days, Capt. John W. Donn of the U.S. Coast Survey, who was along, surveyed the physical challenges and was forced to turn in a negative report. The disappointed Grant wired Knoxville advising that the waterborne supply expedition had to be placed on hold, even though USN tinclads were now available. The navy would take the convoy up by the first rise—but no one knew when that would occur. Efforts would meanwhile be made to send goods overland.
On November 18, Brig. Gen. Meigs was notified that “rations for General Burnside could not be sent now even if there was water enough in the Cumberland until the result of present movements by Longstreet are known.” Given the Confederates’ activities, Grant decided it better to unload the boats rather than to keep them in a constant state of readiness.
While Chattanooga occupied the headlines, the efforts to safely resupply Nashville and Knoxville continued apace. Upon her return to Nashville from the Upper Cumberland, the Newsboy was ordered west to help guard against an increasing number of partisan operations along the riverbanks on the main convoy route from Louisville.
The Union crisis in position and supply for the fortress city of Chattanooga was favorably resolved by November 27 when Maj. Gen. Sherman happily wired Memphis commander Brig. Gen. Stephen A. Hurlburt: “We outwitted Bragg and drove him off Missionary Ridge.” Unsupported by Longstreet, who was still outside Knoxville, the Confederate leader took his men away from the Tennessee River and back to north Georgia.
RAdm. Porter, on December 2, reported on the operations “lately carried on up the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers.” “The gunboats,” he wrote Secretary Welles, “have been extremely active and have achieved with perfect success all that was desired or required of them.” Maj. Gen. Grant, according to veteran soldier Ralsa Rice, expressing the sentiment of many, was now considered “invincible.”
Confederate partisans mounting raids against Union shipping were particularly anxious to strike the steamers, especially those now allowed to again sail alone. When, at a windy Canton, Kentucky, on November 27, the stern of the halted transport May Duke was blown ashore, a large group of irregulars clamored aboard. After rifling the boat’s safe and whiskey supply, the greycoats forced it to carry them across the stream.
When word was received of this mischief at Clarksville, the Newsboy hurriedly journeyed toward Canton to intercede. Henry D. Osborne, one of her crewmen, would write to his brother when they returned on December 3 that she just missed an opportunity to halt “300 Rebs” from crossing the stream. Taking note of the increased number of guerrillas in the area, a Chicago correspondent advised that additional “trouble is expected from the wretches unless gunboats patrol the stream and keep them at a safe distance.” The Newsboy and Silver Lake No. 2 would, without publicity, continue to patrol the Cumberland on both sides of Nashville in the months ahead.6
Although Chattanooga was out of danger as the new month dawned, Knoxville was still invested by Lt. Gen. Longstreet. Cold, wet Tennessee nights and dreary days were back and the hours of daylight were shorter now than at any other time in the year. Still, from a nautical viewpoint, that climate was preferable for many to the hot, disease-ridden summers and low water.
The Ohio and Cumberland River convoys to Nashville from Cincinnati and Louisville, shepherded by the tinclads of the Eighth Division, Mississippi Squadron, continued without letup as the river stage increased. The siege of Knoxville was raised by December 7 and Longstreet’s Confederates retreated thereafter deep into Dixie. The problem of getting supplies to the Union troops in Knoxville continued, as did the army’s desire to push goods up the narrow but now deeper Upper Cumberland to Big South Fork. For the next few months, improvised steamers from Chattanooga would also be sent to Knoxville via the Upper Tennessee, but their capacity was insufficient to meet that garrison’s requirements.
On December 21, Maj. Gen. Grant transferred his headquarters back to Nashville, leaving Maj. Gen. Thomas in charge at Chattanooga. The same day, Grant wired Maj. Gen. John Foster, who had succeeded Burnside at Knoxville, advising that he was “pushing forward everything possible for you with all rapidity.” The pledge was repeated the next day as he asked Lt. Cmdr. Fitch, via Nashville’s chief quartermaster Col. Donaldson, for a gunboat to conduct a reconnaissance up to Big South Fork.
Acting with alacrity, the naval commander immediately detailed his chief deputy, Acting Volunteer Lieutenant Henry A. Glassford, to execute the request with his tinclad, Reindeer, which was prepared for the same role earlier in the month. Before his departure to Nashville to learn the mission parameters from Grant himself. Fitch’s subordinate was warned to be very cautious, not to venture where there was insufficient water depth, and above all, not to be caught above shoals.
The cigar-chomping Grant informed Glassford during a short meeting at army headquarters late on December 23 that his mission carried three objectives: the convoy of supply steamers to Carthage, determination of the existence of any supplies of coal in the area which might be barged down to Nashville, and a general reconnaissance as far upstream as possible, hopefully the whole 400 miles to Point Isabel. The theater commander notified Knoxville on Christmas Eve: “two steamers here with three more to arrive loaded with stores for you.” Early on Christmas Day, Maj. Gen. Foster telegraphed his superior that arrangements to receive supplies were complete at two army depots. It was really hoped that Point Isabel could be reached, but if not, the goods could be off-loaded at Carthage and placed under guard. Grant replied informing the Knoxville chief that two steamers loaded with subsistence stores were prepared to leave that morning for Carthage under “charge of gunboats and guards.”7
Capt. John W. Donn, U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. Having arrived at Chattanooga from the east in October 1863, Donn was soon thereafter transferred to Nashville to participate in the Glassford reconnaissance to Big South Fork. He would remain in the West until March 1864. The engineer is here pictured second from left (seated with mustache) at the C&GS Topographical Conference of 1892 (U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).
The USS Reindeer, with Army Lt. Roberts’ Silver Lake No. 2 in company, departed Nashville for Carthage on Boxing Day to undertake the Upper Cumberland reconnaissance requested by Maj. Gen. Grant. In addition to the two warships, three transports, the Hazel Dell, Mariner, and Nettie Hartupee, the latter just returned from above, went along, with 140 sharpshooters and three officers from Lt. Col. Andrew J. Cropsey’s 129th Illinois Volunteer Infantry embarked. Also attached, though not mentioned in official reports, was Coast Survey Capt. Donn.
Interestingly, Capt. Elza Z. Stringer’s Nettie Hartupee was a veteran of the wartime Upper Cumberland trade, having traveled the stream to Point Isabel escorted and unescorted on several earlier occasions. At the beginning of August 1863, his boat was the only one out of eight able to cross Goose Creek Shoals, above Burkesville, and discharge her cargo at Point Isabel. The Nettie Hartupee was the only steamboat in port when troops from Maj. Gen. Burnside’s command arrived en route to Knoxville and was tasked with transporting army components, including infantry, cavalry, artillery, horses, and cattle across the Cumberland. Over the next four and a half months, the vessel plied the waters down to Burkesville, bringing up cargoes from other boats unable to pass over the shoals. She, like all of the stern-wheelers running on the river, had “the hourly experience” of taking guerrilla musket fire.
Without incident, the USN-led force paddled up to Carthage, arriving just after noon on December 28. Following conversation with local citizens and soldiers, the task group commander wired Grant before dark reporting that a large quantity of excellent and already mined coal, maybe half a million bushels, was supposed to be lying on the bank in the vicinity of Olympus, in Overton County, about 50 miles from the mouth of Obey River. His informants believed barges could take it out if the army first cleared the area of local irregulars. After conferring with Lt. Col. Cropsey, Glassford arranged for 100 soldiers to be left at Carthage to guard the transports while they were unloaded. During the night, the naval officer discerned the possibility of a considerable rise in the river’s depth, which boded well for their endeavor.
Lt. Col. Cropsey and 40 of his best men transferred aboard the Reindeer and Silver Lake No. 2 at daylight on the morning of December 29. Just before their departure, Glassford and the soldiers were warned that a part of Jackson County, south of the Cumberland and Overton as far east as the Obey River, was a hotbed of guerrilla activity. The area’s well-merited reputation would be fully appreciated as they passed through.
The Cumberland above Carthage winds northeast with a shape something akin to a pair of W’s end to end. The progress of the noisy, smoky gunboats was easily observed and as easily communicated; as the craft approached the Jackson County line, irregulars turned out in significant numbers, perhaps as high as 200, to contest their intrusion. Their leaders were believed to include Oliver P. Hamilton, John M. Hughes, Champ Ferguson, and Robert V. Richardson. As Glassford later put it, the “whole region seemed roused.” Choosing the tops of precipitous bluffs or cliffs, bands numbering from 10 to 15 men up to 75 to 100 concealed themselves in the thick timber or behind rocks and boulders waiting to loose volleys of small arms fire on the steamers.
The Reindeer and Silver Lake No. 2 were taken under fire five times on the 29th. At Ray’s Ferry, a party of 15 or 20 men shot into the gunboats; the ambushes were repeated by 15 or 20 men at Flynn’s Lick, 40 or 50 at Gainesboro, 15 or 20 at Ferris Woodyard, and at Bennett’s Ferry, two miles below Celina, by 80 to 100.
The Confederates’ positions, the USN leader would report, “availed them nothing, however, against the guns of this vessel and those of the Silver Lake No. 2; they were completely shelled out of them whenever they let us see them after a few volleys.” Lt. Col. Cropsey allowed as how the Rebels “manifested much zeal and skill,” but proved no match for the gunboats which quickly dislodged them with shot and shell “in fine style under the supervision of Captain Glassford.” So well positioned was the enemy that his flight after each attack was easy; Cropsey did not land his sharpshooters or attempt any kind of foot pursuit.
This is not to say that the Rebels’ assaults accomplished nothing. The stacks and upper works of the Reindeer, already damaged by the trees and low-hanging brush through which she passed, were perforated with bullet holes. Additionally, the bulkheading on the boiler deck, always weak and defective, was almost destroyed by the firing of her Dahlgren howitzers. Considerable repair, if not replacement, would be required before the officers could again occupy their quarters. Damage to the Silver Lake No. 2 is not recorded, though it is probable that she was also riddled. Although the army sharpshooters apparently had no luck against the bushwhackers, no Yankee soldiers or bluejackets were killed, though two were wounded.
While passing Gainesboro, Lt. Glassford toyed with the idea of stopping to destroy the place. The town was supposedly a notorious irregular rendezvous and Rear Adm. Porter was on record as having ordered it destroyed. Informed, possibly by Grant, that Gov. Andrew Johnson wanted to build a military post in the community and needed the town’s building, the sailor held off, ensuring Gainesboro’s survival. The residents of other small hamlets en route were intimidated by the gunboats, which threw shells at them, according to historian Byrd Douglas, “on the theory that ‘guerrillas’ [among them] were sniping at the boats.”
Following what Capt. Donn called a hundred-mile or more “running fight with guerrillas,” the two gunboats reached the mouth of Obey River. There a quantity of loose coal was found, partially burned by the Confederates. It was a small portion of a partially burned cache of 500,000 bushels that had been dumped in 1861 after having been partially transferred up the 50 miles from an interior coal mine near the town of Olympus. Lt. Roberts’ boat, now almost out of fuel, was ordered to stop and coal from the piles while the Reindeer provided cover and gave Captain Donn a chance to examine the navigational features of the stream. While this occurred, Glassford noticed a certain uneasiness among the people seen milling around on shore and so decided to back off into midstream to investigate. A half mile downstream, he came upon the head of a mounted guerrilla band headed toward the coal dump. Apparently the Rebels believed both boats were in Obey scooping up the precious fuel while jammed among the branches of the trees that overhung the banks. Any idea of an attack on the part of the horsemen was “dispersed with a few rounds of shrapnel and canister.”
Moving into Union County, the gunboats found the populace well disposed toward the United States, with many on the bank cheering them instead of shooting. Crossing over the Tennessee-Kentucky state line, the vessels reached Creelsboro, Kentucky, about 12:30 p.m. on December 30. There Lt. Glassford took stock of his magazine and recorded his ammunition expenditure; there yet remained plenty to continue fighting, ahead or on the way back. They were now just 65 miles from Point Isabel and the mouth of the Big South Fork. Then forward progress ceased as the weather changed significantly late in the day, becoming extremely cold.
Overnight, the level in the Cumberland declined by four feet, thus giving unmistakable signs of a fall. Aware that there were would obviously be no coal barges sent up for towing to Nashville before the February rise, the mission commander elected to return downstream on New Year’s.
USS Reindeer. One of three “super” light draught tinclads to join the Mississippi Squadron at the time of Morgan’s Raid, the Reindeer was captained by Lt. Henry Glassford for the remainder of the war. In addition to her participation in all of his Upper Cumberland River expeditions in 1863–1865, she conducted regular convoy duties and fought in the Battle of Nashville. She had the unhappy distinction of being the first of her class decommissioned at war’s end and turned into a transport. Purchased into private service in October 1865 as the Mariner, she was lost in the Missouri River in May 1867 (Naval History and Heritage Command).
Leaving the Silver Lake No. 2 as guard boat at Carthage, Glassford’s Reindeer, with Cropsey as passenger, returned to Nashville on January 3, 1864. There the latter reported that most of the countryside they visited was cleared, save for Jackson County, where “guerrillas” kept the land south of the river “in a perfect terror.” Governor Johnson was told that a small force of Union soldiers stationed near Carthage could “clear the navigation of the Cumberland” and pacify the entire area.8
At the same time as Glassford’s expedition was underway, Maj. Gen. Grant, beginning on December 26, undertook his own Cumberland inspection trip, checking the condition of his men, their garrisons and supplies. The Department of the Mississippi commander’s route, by steamboat, railroad, and horse, took him over a rough, rectangle-shaped route from Nashville to Chattanooga to Knoxville to Lexington, Kentucky, and back to Nashville by mid-January. This personal reconnaissance clearly demonstrated the need for regular supply convoys to Big South Fork, supported by the USN and army gunboats, as the extreme cold made the usual land transport avenues impracticable.
“I am satisfied,” Maj. Gen. Halleck was informed on January 15, “that no portion of our supplies can be hauled by teams from Camp Nelson.” The chief general in Washington was informed that “on the first rise of the Cumberland, 1,200,000 rations will be sent to the mouth of the Big South Fork.” The road from that point was better than that over the Cumberland Gap; until that goal could be accomplished, the troops in East Tennessee would have to live off the land and on what little could be sent by rail and up the Tennessee by improvised steamer from Chattanooga.9
If the transport requirement was obvious, so too was knowledge that any organized logistical effort would be resisted by Confederate forces, particularly the many local irregulars. On January 11, Brig. Gen. Eleazer Paine, headquartered at Gallatin and charged with guarding the Louisville and Nashville Railroad from Nashville to Kentucky, had made an aggressive proposal to Gov. Andrew Johnson. It was suggested that his infantry and Col. William B. Stokes’ 5th Tennessee Cavalry (USA) be allowed to accompany the Newsboy and the next USN convoy to clear out the guerrillas all the way up the Cumberland to Burkesville. The command would be far larger than any counterinsurgency force yet utilized in the area, far larger than the few soldiers available to land from the army gunboats or even the USN tinclads. The sortie would be sanctioned within days and would herald the opening phase of a new Union “effort to bring the Upper Cumberland under control.”
While Paine worked out arrangements for his sweep, Nashville assistant quartermaster Ferdinand S. Winslow had one million and a quarter of rations loaded on eight steamers, which were then dispatched to Carthage. Under protection of the two available army gunboats, the first Point Isabel convoy of 1864 got underway during the third week of January. Fired upon while approaching Gainesboro by numerous Southern gunmen, the lightly defended boats were forced to return to Carthage. The accompanying Newsboy then returned to Nashville, where it was reported (incorrectly) that one of the supply transports was sunk by enemy fire.
In Nashville at the time, Lt. Cmdr. Fitch quickly learned that the transports headed above Carthage were in danger from guerrillas and the “Army gunboats not sufficient to protect them.” The Silver Lake No. 2, serving as station boat at the Kentucky town and guarding the coal barges, could not assist, so a request for help was sent to Fitch on January 24.
After conferring with Brig. Gen. Eleazer Paine, Lt. Col. Bowers and others, the USN commander confirmed to RAdm. Porter that “the exigency of the service at the present moment requires that we should take some little risk, as the army above need supplies very much.” From information coming into the Tennessee capital, it seemed “that the entire population of Jackson County” was rising to prevent the transports getting through. Fitch believed his old foe, John Hunt Morgan, was behind the resistance: “I believe it is thought that this will be Morgan’s first endeavor to cut off supplies.” Fitch secretly relished a rematch; “I trust that for our benefit,” he informed his superior, “the enemy may stick to his purpose.” As Fitch prepared to participate in Paine’s expedition, the Newsboy returned to Carthage carrying a few soldiers and, more importantly, information that a thousand others would follow.
The Moose, Reindeer, and Victory, half of the tinclads assigned to the Eighth District, departed for Carthage on a slowly falling river dropping anchor off the port late on January 27. There they found eight steamers loaded for Port Isabel and the Big South Fork, along with the army gunboats Newsboy and Silver Lake 2.
After a brief conference the next morning in which he stressed to all vessel captains how important it was to get provisions through to Big South Fork because Union troops needed them badly, Fitch again put Glassford in charge of the mission, giving him also the Victory to supplement the Reindeer and the two army boats.
Before noon on January 31, Brig. Gen. Paine launched his sweep into Jackson County north and south of the river with infantry and cavalry. Meanwhile, Glassford agreed to participate in the expedition, accompanying the troop steamer Sullivan, escorted by the Silver Lake No.2, further upstream above Sand Shoals. Although the Reindeer was unable to cross the obstructions, the other two vessels could. That evening, the transport and the army vessel returned to Carthage, where Glassford was informed of the military’s success. “The boats were not fired upon at all,” he was told, and some 33 Rebels were killed and 63 captured. No one mentioned that most of the butternut irregulars in the area avoided fighting and hid in the hilly terrain.
An Army gunboat on Western waters. The U.S. Army’s Quartermaster Department operated a number of light gunboats on the Western Rivers during the Civil War. The most prominent were the Newsboy and Silver Lake, No. 2 based at Nashville and the Stone River at Bridgeport, Alabama. The vessel depicted could well represent the Newsboy, on the Harpeth Shoals side of Nashville (Harper’s Weekly, October 11, 1862).
When Paine returned to Nashville, he left the two army gunboats at Carthage, with the Silver Lake No. 2 resuming her station-keeping duties. The naval convoy, with difficulty, continued toward Big South Fork during the first week of February, encountering numerous navigational problems. Quartermaster Winslow recalled that it
wound its way slowly up the river; sometimes attacked by guerrillas, sometimes waiting until the gunboats had cleared the way, then laying over for days at sandbars, with only 15 to 20 inches of water, and waiting for a rise; lightening and pulling each other over low places; then detained for want of fuel, and collecting all the fence rails they could find in the country.
The Reindeer and Victory hauled the steamers through their last major obstacle, the 30-inch shallows of Wolf Creek Shoals, on February 18 while Lt. Glassford undertook a scout aboard the Newsboy of the final 41-mile leg to Burnside Point at Point Isabel. When the tinclads and transports arrived the next day, “after six weeks hard work,” they found the army had insufficient storehouses for the amount of supplies delivered; however, working with quartermaster troops, the surplus was piled up ashore and covered with boards and tarpaulins. It was anticipated that the army would have rations for some time. Once the cargo was discharged and the boats were coaled, they were able to round to and make the long trip back to Nashville on the next rise, “without further damage than small repairs.”10
The conflict on the Upper Cumberland, always a brutal counterinsurgency affair for Federal regular and volunteer forces, and even nastier for area residents, continued apace into the spring, as did the river supply convoys to Point Isabel. The number of vessels involved were seldom above three or maybe four transports, usually but not always guarded by one or both of the U.S. Army gunboats. On every trip, the boats were subjected to volleys from shore, but the number of irregulars engaged was usually small and they lacked artillery. Before the dedicated waterborne Knoxville replenishment concluded in early summer, there was only one more incident of nautical interest recorded.
With supplies from Nashville, three army transports, the Ella Faber, World, and Nettie Hartupee, steaming without escort, arrived unmolested at Point Isabel during the first week of March and were unloaded. Downriver at the Tennessee capital, intelligence was meanwhile received by the Federals that a large group of “marauders,” said to number 50 to 100 insurgents believed led by Charles “Champ” Ferguson, a guerrilla leader notorious in Union circles, was planning to hit the trio shortly after its return departure. The Newsboy, taking on ammunition and supplies at Carthage, was ordered by wire to steam upstream and lead them down. Proceeding as rapidly as the tricky stream would permit, she was slowed by thick fog and could not rendezvous before their departure.
Rope Ferry, Cumberland River, Burnside, Kentucky, ca. 1900. Since the earliest days, ferries were employed to transport men and goods across the various Western rivers. They could be either self-propelled vessels or, on smaller streams such as that depicted here, basically flatboats that could be pulled across. Ferries were heavily employed by Confederates attempting to move troops and were thus a major target for Federal soldiers and gunboats (Library of Congress).
It was Saturday morning, March 12, 20 miles below Burkesville, when the three stern-wheelers were caught by Ferguson. There was a squad of convalescent soldiers aboard the Ella Faber, who returned fire and thus protected their boat, plus the World, as they passed. Despite the upper works of the steamers being riddled by bullets, there were no fatalities, though two bluecoats were wounded.
The Nettie Hartupee was unable to pass by the fire and so hugged the other side of the river. At this point, a troop of 11th Kentucky Cavalry (USA) appeared and hailed the steamer, asking her pilot to take them aboard and cross them over. Believing the horsemen to be Rebels, the transport master ordered his boat to pass on, but could not get by the Southern chokepoint. Unable to proceed, she simply hove to.
At this point, the Kentucky horsemen came up with the boat and their officers were able to convince the steamboatmen of their true Union affiliation. As the soldiers and their horses were being taken aboard, the Newsboy arrived from below and shelled the surrounding woods and hills as the Rebels faded away. The Nettie Hartupee, together with the Ella Faber, World, and Newsboy, passed on without further incident.11
1. U.S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (128 vols.; Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1880–1901), Series I, Vol. 20, Pt. 1, 979–984 (cited hereafter as OR, followed by the series number, volume number, part number, if any, and page[s]); OR, I, 20, 2: 322–323, 326, 328; U.S. Navy Department, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion (31 vols.; Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1894–1922), Series I, Vol. 24, 15–19, 650 (cited hereafter as ORN, followed by the series number, volume number, and page[s]); Nashville Daily Dispatch, January 14, 17, 1863; Nashville Daily Union, January 14, 1863; The New York Times, January 10, 1863; Chicago Daily Tribune, January 22, 1863; New York Herald, January 15, 18, 1863; New Haven Daily Palladium, January 17, 1863; Boston Herald, January 23, 1863; Earl J. Hess, The Knoxville Campaign: Burnside and Longstreet in East Tennessee ( Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2012), 109–110; Benjamin Franklin Cooling, Fort Donelson’s Legacy: War and Society in Kentucky and Tennessee, 1862–1863 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1997), 326–327; Frederick Way, Jr., comp., Way’s Packet Directory, 1848–1994 (2nd ed., Athens: Ohio University Press, 1994), 82, 208, 363, 459; Kenneth W. Noe, ed., A Southern Boy in Blue: The Memoir of Marcus Woodcock, 9th Kentucky Infantry (USA) (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1996), 143; Charles Dana Gibson, with E. Kay Gibson, Assault and Logistics, Vol. 2: Union Army Coastal and River Operations, 1861–1866 (Camden, ME: Ensign Press, 1995), 228–230. The Lucy French quote can be found in Greg Poole’s “The Affair at Harpeth Shoals,” Cheatham County Historical and Genealogical Association CCHGA Bytes (February 2006), 6. On January 14, one of the Sidell’s gunners made it back to Nashville, where he reported that the disaster to his craft had been caused by the pilot leaving his wheel.
2. William C. Lytle, Merchant Steam Vessels of the United States, 1807–1868: “The Lytle List” (Mystic, CT: The Steamship Historical Society of America, 1952), 138; Charles Dana Gibson, with E. Kay Gibson, Assault and Logistics, Vol. 1: Dictionary of Transports and Combatant Vessels Steam and Sail Employed by the Union Army, 1861–1868 (Camden, ME: Ensign Press, 1995), 239; Way, Way’s Packet Directory, 347, 426; Lenette S. Taylor, “The Supply for Tomorrow Must Not Fail”: The Civil War of Captain Simon Perkins, Jr., a Union Quartermaster (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2004), 150–151, 256–260; OR, I, 31, 3: 93; John H. Ross, “Silver Lake No. 2: Her Men and History,” http://www.acw70indiana.com/silverlake.htm (accessed September 27, 2019); John Alexander Caldwell, History of Belmont and Jefferson Counties, Ohio (Wheeling, WV: Historical Publishing Company, 1880), 458; Thomas Lowry, Sexual Misconduct in the Civil War: A Compendium (Bloomington, IN: Xlibris Corporation, 2006), 155. A dedicated history of the Quartermaster Department gunboats on Western waters has never appeared in print, not even in a newspaper or journal article. It is doubtful if this aging author will get to it as considerable research of the basic spade work variety would be required. Still, some enterprising PhD student or other curious writer seeking to capture a niche might find this “virgin” topic a worthy challenge.
3. OR, I, 30, 1: 214–220; OR, I, 30, 4: 475–476; OR, I, 31, 1: 39, 678, 680, 712, 729, 774, 784, 788; OR, I, 31, 3: 10, 16, 26, 34, 38; ORN, I, 25: 466–472, 476, 482, 504, 509, 524–525, 592, 614; ORN, I, 23: 322; David W. White, Second Only to Grant: Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs (Shippensburg, PA: White Mane Books, 2000), 214–220; Walter T. Durham, Reluctant Partners: Nashville and the Union—July 1, 1863, to June 30, 1865 (Nashville: The Tennessee Historical Society, 1987), 16; Wiley Sword, Mountains Touched with Fire: Chattanooga Besieged, 1863 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995), 116–118; Ulysses S. Grant, The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Vol. 9: July 7–December 31, 1863, edited by John Y. Simon (32 vols.; Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1967–2012), 34; Robert McKenzie, Lincolnites and Rebels: A Divided Town [Knoxville] in the American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp.159–171; Hess, The Knoxville Campaign, 53–76; Benjamin Franklin Cooling, Fort Donelson's Legacy: War and Society in Kentucky and Tennessee, 1862–1863 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1997), 325; Nashville Daily Press, November 3, 1863. Our comments on the Cumberland River come from Byrd Douglas’ Steamboatin’ on the Cumberland (Nashville: Tennessee Book Company, 1961).
4. ORN, I, 25: 534–535, 546–547, 592–594; OR, I, 31, 3: 48–49, 60; Taylor, “The Supply for Tomorrow Must Not Fail,” 151.
5. ORN, I, 25: 434–435, 541, 546–547, 549, 592–593; Durham, Reluctant Partners, 17; Nashville Daily Press, November 7, 1863; OR, I, 31, 1: 74, 84–85; OR, I, 31, 3: 64, 66, 75, 84–85, 94; Cooling, Fort Donelson’s Legacy, 326.
6. OR, I, 31, 3: 93, 107–108, 115, 123, 134–136, 156, 174, 177, 182; ORN, I, 25: 553–557, 564, 570, 579–582, 586, 592–595, 608, 612–614, 631; Durham, Reluctant Partners, 17–18; Cooling, Fort Donelson’s Legacy, 327; John W. Donn, "War Record of J. W. Donn, Including Reminiscences of Frederick W. Dorr, July 1861 to June 1865," NOAA History homepage, http://www.history.noaa.gov/stories_tales/donn.html (accessed April 4, 2005); Ralsa C. Rice, Yankee Tigers: Through the Civil War with the One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Ohio, edited by Richard A. Baumgartner and Larry M. Strayer (Huntington, WV: Blue Acorn Press, 1992), 75–77; “Letter from Henry D. Osborn on board the Gunboat Newsboy, December 3, 1863,” Worthopedia, https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/dec-1863-civil-war-letter-henry-456192002 (accessed September 27, 2019). Sioux City, IA, resident Osborne (1841–1917) was a private in Company E, 18th Michigan Infantry. Sioux City Journal, May 7, 1917; Chicago Daily Tribune, December 5, 1863.
7. OR, I, 31, 3: 463; ORN, I, 25: 657–659; William Tecumseh Sherman, Memoirs (New York: Penguin Books, 2000), 350–353, 357; James B. Jones, “‘Fevers Ran High’: The Civil War on the Cumberland,” in Michael R. Birdwell and Calvin W. Dickinson, eds., Rural Life and Culture in the Upper Cumberland (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2004), 94.
8. ORN, I, 25: 647–651; OR, I, 31, 1: 644–645; Douglas, Steamboatin' on the Cumberland, 149; Grant, Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, 549; James Alex Baggett, Homegrown Yankees: Tennessee’s Union Cavalry in the Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2009), 140; John W. Donn, "War Record of J. W. Donn, Including Reminiscences of Frederick W. Dorr, July 1861 to June 1865," NOAA History homepage, http://www.history.noaa.gov/stories_tales/donn.html (accessed April 4, 2005); “Elza Z. Stringer,” in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Adams, Clay, Hall and Hamilton Counties , Nebraska (Chicago: Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1890), 649; Durham, Reluctant Partners, 18–19; Jones, “Fevers Ran High,” 94–95; Leroy Graf, Ralph W. Haskins, and Paul Bergeron, eds., The Papers of Andrew Johnson (16 vols.; Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1967–2000), VI, 538–539.
9. OR, I, 32, 2: 99–101; Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant: A Modern Abridgment (New York: Premier Books, 1962), 264–265. A helpful review of the Civil War in the Cumberland region is Michael R. O’Neal, “The Civil War on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee,” Scott County, Tennessee, FNB Chronicles, VII (Spring 1996), 1, 4–10. Both the Upper Mississippi and the Ohio were ice clogged from right after the holidays, preventing supplies from reaching the Tennessee capital via those arteries. Fortunately, “it broke up,” newly appointed Nashville Assistant Quartermaster Ferdinand S. Winslow, the local chief Officer of River Transportation, later recalled, “in time for the first steamers to arrive on the last day of January.” Ferdinand S. Winslow, “Report of Captain F. S. Winslow,” in Lewis B. Parsons, ed., Reports to the War Department (St. Louis, MO: George Knapp & Co., 1867), 46.
10. ORN, I, 25: 714, 716–717, 720–721, 730, 733, 741–746, 752–753, 756; OR, III, 4: 881; Nashville Daily Dispatch, January 28, 1864; Larry Whiteaker, “Cumberland Tales: Battle of Dug Hill—A Bloody Mystery,” Cookeville (TN) Herald-Citizen, March 7, 2010; Richard Gildrie, "Guerrilla Warfare in the Lower Cumberland River Valley, 1862–1865," Tennessee Historical Quarterly, XLIX (Fall 1990), 170; Baggett, Homegrown Yankees, 143, 151; Winslow, “Report of Captain F. S. Winslow,” in Lewis B. Parsons, ed., Reports to the War Department, 47; Jones, “Fevers Ran High,” 96; Durham, Reluctant Partners, 83–84; Jones, “‘Fevers Ran High,’” 94–96.
11. Chicago Daily Tribune, March 13, 19, 1864; Detroit Free Press, March 25, 1864; New York Tribune, March 28, 1864; St. Louis Daily Missouri Republican, March 28, 1864; Ron Soodalter, “The Scourge of the South,” The New York Times, September 13, 2013; Way’s Packet Directory, 1848–1994, 342. Way, undoubtedly quoting local newspapers, tells an entirely different story of the plight of the Nettie Hartupee. In this version, the craft was hijacked near Nashville by “pirates,” who took off with her to the upper Cumberland. The Newsboy was sent in pursuit and as she began to overhaul the thieves, they landed their prize ashore and “leaped in the woods and vamoosed.” Upon her arrival, the gunboat “shelled the vicinity to no effect.”