parallelogram or nearly an oblong shape, they deposited in it a ton of powder, and then sealed up the cavity as tightly as possible. A train of powder and slow match were only required to explode this immense mass and set free the enormous gaseous force, so soon as the disposition was made for the climacteric. The efficient superintendence of this operation is due to Cap-hours, however, they had felt so much reconciled tain Hickenlooper, of McPherson's staff.

ning force. The rattle of musketry kept up until nightfall. Our batteries on Lightburn's and Giles Smith's front, as well as from Burbridge, kept firing on the rebels; but from the nearness of the combatants, the missiles either did not reach the thick of the rebel opposition, or came so close as to injure our own men. In a few to their position as to commence a most dangerous and dreadful piece of warfare-casting lighted shells over into one. end of the fort. Some grenades, it is said, were first thrown, and afterward twenty-twos and twenty-fours. Our forces seeing the dismay and destruction, still felt secure enough to commence the same game, heaving however, some very heavy shells to the rebel end of the work.

After the explosion, which, by the way, was either noiseless, or at least not noticeable in the rear of heavy guns, our soldiers rushed for the breach, intending to occupy the whole of the work. The blast had opened up a rift right across the fort, extending from wall to wall. The rebels, as if they had knowledge of the design, or else by a marvellous coincidence, rushed simultaneously from the other end. The powder had left a couple of huge projecting lips, and between them a crater-like fissure, making the distance from furrow to furrow from ten to twen-eral McPherson and his engineers that, if not too ty feet. Thus, ranged behind these new-formed walls, our men found themselves face to face with their foes, and a dire and dreadful slaughter commenced from perhaps three hundred men on each side, within this arena of two hundred feet in length.

The contest was severe, and the fresh packs of rifles kept opening on all sides. The gunners loaded and fired away vigorously. The rebels crowded up with great spirit. Our men went in, a regiment at a time, with full cartridge-boxes, and in thirty minutes were relieved by others. The firing for about an hour was more terrific than any battle-field ever the gory field of war has witnessed. Had every shot touched its man there would have been half a million slain; as it was, by far the greater portion of them found lodgment in the solid clay.

The first regiment which rushed in was the scarred remnant of the Forty-fifth Illinois, whose members lie on a dozen illustrious fields, led by Colonel Maltby. Its loss was necessarily severe. It was seconded by the "Bloody Seventh" Missouri, who were soon recalled.

Next went in the Twentieth Illinois, who kept up a gallant resistance for a half-hour, when the Thirty-first Illinois, under Lieutenant-Colonel Reese, went in. Subsequently, during the evening and night, the Twenty-third Indiana, the Forty-sixth Illinois, and the Fifty-sixth Illinois, the latter under its beloved Colonel, Melancthon Smith. The list then commenced again, relieving in this same order.

The mêlée at first was terrible, although the losses were not proportionate at all to the noise. The men on both sides were engaged in throwing up temporary works with a view to getting a light field-piece in position. They had gotten a notched piece of timber rolled up to the top of the rough bank, when smash came a blast from a ten-pounder right in their faces, sending the stick of timber right amongst them, singeing their hair and blackening them with the discharge, killing two or three outright.

This blow struck Colonel Maltby with stun

I may say here that our possession of this end of the fort is regarded as complete as that of the enemy to the rest. It is believed, also, by Gen

much pressed, he can in a day or two establish a battery within the work. The contest still rages, and as both sides are throwing up earthworks, it seems as if we might find at the end of a few days our point gained and our lines advanced to a most commanding position.

Our losses, I grieve to say, include several very fine officers. The total up to noon to-day, in this particular division, will amount to about three hundred in killed and wounded-perhaps forty of the former. Major Leander Fink was killed by a ball through the forehead. Colonel Melancthon Smith, an excellent soldier and a model gentleman, is dangerously and we fear mortally wounded. Lieutenant-Colonel Reese, of the Thirty-first Illinois, is wounded in the arm. Lieutenant J. Clifford, of the Forty-fifth Illinois, is wounded severely. Captain Boyce and Adjutant Frohok, of the same regiment, are wounded also. There are some others, removed to the general hospital, whose names I cannot send at present.*

66

Doc. 37.

COLONEL WILDER'S EXPEDITION.
INDIANAPOLIS "JOURNAL" NARRATIVE,

WARTRACE, TENN., July 4, 1868.
FRIEND TERRELL: You have doubtless heard

before this of the evacuation of the rebel stronghold, Tullahoma. As Wilder's command had a hand" in it, I will write you some particulars. He started from Murfreesboro on the twentyfourth of June. His brigade had the advance of the "centre" on the Manchester road. At nine o'clock A.M. he met the rebel pickets eight miles from Murfreesboro, and drove them and all their reserves on a run through Hoover's Gap, a long, narrow, winding hollow through a chain of hills dividing the waters of Stone and Duck Rivers, and about seventeen miles from Murfreesboro. Two thirds through the gap the rebels had forti

* See Report of General Grant, page 142, Docs. ante.

fied a strong position, but his brigade was so much for the first fight of these regiments as a close on their heels that they had not time to de-brigade.

The twenty-eighth he started for Dixie, sure enough. He came to Elk River, and on trying to ford it, found water enough to have discouraged old Noah, and too swift to swim. He went

ploy into their works before it was inside also. Two days afterward, when the wings of the They immediately "skedaddled," losing forty-army had caught up with them, the brigade two prisoners and the battle-flag of the First started forward, Wilder's command making a Kentucky cavalry, the one presented them at flank movement around the rebel right, which Elizabethtown, Ky., by the sister of General made them fall back to Wartrace the next mornBen. Hardin Helm, and worked by her hands. ing. Wilder moved to Manchester, where he Colonel Wilder will send it to the State library found about forty rebels taking their breakfast. to grace its walls. He drove them on a run four He kindly offered to transplant them to a cooler miles beyond the gap, and had halted the main climate until swapped off for better men- they part of his force at the mouth of the gap, when "dickered." he heard the long-roll sounded in their infantry camps two miles down the Garrison fork of Duck River to his right. He immediately made the proper dispositions for a fight, being determined to hold the mouth of the gap until Gene-up-stream six miles, and found a place still ral Reynolds arrived with the balance of the di- enough for his horses to swim across, by being vision. The proper dispositions were hardly washed down-stream thirty yards. He made a made before two brigades of infantry came up in raft of an old saw-mill, and floated his mountain line of battle, "double-quick," and apparently as howitzer over, towing it by our picket-ropes. confident as if they already had possession. As Every body was in a good humor, and had lots of soon as they came within four hundred yards fun over our "gunboat," as the boys called the "Lilly" gave them a few rounds of double-shot-raft. He had sent Colonel Munroe (One Hunted canister from his "Rodmans," and on their dred and Twenty-third Illinois) with his regiment nearer approach Colonel Miller, Seventy-second to destroy the railroad bridge over Elk River in Indiana, let loose his "travelling arsenal" on the rear of Tullahoma, but Withers's division of their right, which sent them "right-about" as infantry got there three hundred yards ahead of fast as they could go, fully persuaded that charg- him. He then returned to Hillsboro. Wilder's ing a battery, supported by Spencer rifles in the command moved on to Dechard that night, and hands of Hoosiers, was an up-hill business. On after a sharp skirmish with the garrison of about Wilder's right the old Seventeenth had opened eighty men in a stockade, drove them out-they their "horizontal shot-tower" (as the boys call escaped in the dark. He destroyed the teletheir Spencer rifies) upon five regiments of rebels graph-wire, capturing the instruments, and burnunder General Bates, who outflanked them and ing the depot, which was full of commissary were closing on their rear, charging and yelling goods; also the water-tanks and railroad bridge like the bottomless pit broke loose. Wilder im- on the Winchester road, and tore up and demediately sent the Ninety-eighth Illinois, Colonel stroyed three hundred yards of the Chattanooga Funkhouser, to their relief, who outflanked the railroad track. This could not be done very fast rebel left, and then you ought to have heard the on account of the darkness. At twelve o'clock, rattle. The rebels stood about five minutes, or midnight, six regiments of infantry came after his rather lay that length of time, waiting for our brigade, and he left, taking the road to Chattamen to stop and load, (our repeaters shoot seven nooga, over the mountains, intending to strike times without loading, and are reloaded in less the Cow Creek bridges, near Stevenson, but on time than an ordinary musket ;) finding that they attempting to get down the mountain single-file, were fast getting their "rights in the territories," at Tantalon, he found three trains loaded with and that they were emigrating to the realms of infantry awaiting him, and by this time all their the first secessionist faster than the Irish are to cavalry was after him. He then attempted to America, they concluded that was not just the go to Anderson, ten miles further on, and destroy place for the "last ditch," and those who could, the bridge at that point, but also found a brigade left as fast as their legs could carry them. Their of Buckner's troops at that point, which was inofficers tried to bring them up a second time, but approachable if defended, the only road down the after a few feeble attempts they concluded to mountain being a bridle-path over which but one fight it out on the Chinese principle, by making man could go abreast, and the depot is but three a great noise with two batteries at a safe dis-hundred yards from the foot of the mountain. tance; but "Lilly" made them change their position several times, until they took a position behind some hills, where they continued to belch away without harm until night.

Wilder's entire loss was sixty-one killed and wounded, the rebels admitting a loss of one hundred killed and five hundred wounded, and claiming that they had fought sixteen regiments, when only Wilder's four regiments were in it, the nearest infantry of ours being six miles in the rear, who did not get up until the fight was over. So

He could not reach the road, and now had to make his escape.

The whole of the rebel cavalry and Buckner's division of infantry were after him, and his men had been in their saddles and their horses under them for seven days. His men were out of rations and his horses starved, and the mountains without farms or inhabitants, and to leave them was certain capture.

He started the head of the column, after Colonel Munroe came up from Hillsboro, toward Chatta

nooga, and on the other slope of the mountains, To Major-General Banks, Commanding United during a terrible rain which washed out his trail, moved by his left flank two miles over the rocks into the woods, leaving a picket to watch for the

feeding their horses, preparatory to another trip To Major-General Banks, Commanding U. S.

Brigadier-General W. H. EMORY,
purpose?
Commanding Defences of New-Orleans.

HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES FORCES,
BEFORE PORT HUDSON, July 8.

To Major-General Frank Gardner, Commanding
C. S. Forces, Port Hudson:

GENERAL: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of this date, stating that you are willing to surrender the garrison under your command to the forces under my command, and that you will appoint a commission of three officers to meet a similar commission appointed by me, at nine o'clock this morning, for the purpose of agreeing upon and drawing up the terms of surrender.

In reply I have the honor to state that I have designated Brigadier-General Charles P. Stone, Colonel Henry W. Birge, and Lieutenant-Colonel Richard B. Irwin as the officers to meet the commission appointed by you. They will meet your officers at the hour designated at a point where the flag of truce was received this morning. I will direct that active hostilities shall entirely cease on my part until further notice, for the purpose stated.

Very respectfully, your most obedient servant, N. P. BANKS, Major-General Commanding. The following were the articles of capitulation proposed between the commissioners on the part of the garrison of Port Hudson, La., and the forces of the United States before said place, July eighth, 1863:

Heaven be praised! Port Hudson is ours! In my late letters I have informed you how, step by step, we were encroaching upon the enemy, until all resistance would be useless. Somewhere about midnight of the seventh, a Lieutenant of Holcomb's battery came to the tent of Major-General Augur's Assistant Adjutant-General, and said that the enemy were sounding a bugle, which foreboded he knew not what. Shortly afterward another came to say that they had sent out a flag of truce. Very soon after that an officer came galloping up, in the bright light of a waning moon, from General Banks's headquarters; and I heard the voice of Colonel Irwin eagerARTICLE 1. Major-General Frank Gardner sur-ly inquiring for the tent of General Augur -- the rendered to the United States forces under MajorGeneral Banks, the place of Port Hudson and its dependencies, with its garrison, armament, munitions, public funds, material of war, in the condition as nearly as may be in which they were at the hour of cessation of hostilities, namely, six o'clock A.M., July eighth, 1863.

ARTICLE 2. The surrender stipulated in Article 1 is qualified by no condition, save that the officers and enlisted men composing the garrison shall receive the treatment due to prisoners of war, according to the usages of civilized warfare. ARTICLE 3. All private property of officers and enlisted men shall be inspected and left to their respective owners.

ARTICLE 4. The position of Port Hudson shall be occupied to-morrow at seven o'clock A.M. by the forces of the United States, and its garrison received as prisoners of war by such general officers of the United States service as may be designated by Major-General Banks, with the ordinary formalities of rendition. The confederate troops will be drawn up in line, officers in their positions, the right of the line resting on the edge of the prairie south of the railroad depot, the left extending in the direction of the village of Port Hudson. The arms and colors will be piled conveniently, and will be received by the officers of the United States.

ARTICLE 5. The sick and wounded of the garrison will be cared for by the authorities of the

whole camp being in calm repose. The few who were awake wondered, of course, what all this could mean; and what it did the official correspondence will best explain.

At the earliest dawn of the-now ever memorable-ninth July, the whole camp was necessarily in the highest state of glee and commotion, and the "Star-Spangled Banner," "Yankee Doodle," and "Dixie" came borne upon the morning air-never sounding sweeter.

At seven o'clock, General Andrews, Chief of the Staff of General Banks, made his grand entrance into the rebel fortifications, with Colonel noble services have thus been, happily for their Birge leading his brave storming column, whose friends, dispensed with; but to whom the country is no less indebted-taking the will for the deed. These were followed by two picked regiments from each division, with Holcomb's and Rawle's battery of light artillery, and the gunners of the naval battery.

The rebels were drawn up in line, and an immense line they made, their officers in front of them on one side of the road, their backs to the river. General Gardner then advanced toward General Andrews, and, in a few accompanying words, offered to surrender his sword with Port Hudson; but General Andrews told him that, in appreciation of his bravery-however misdirected-he was at liberty to retain his sword.

Our men were then drawn up in two lines on the other side of the road, opposite to the rebels,

and our officers placed themselves in front of the beans they had left, I don't think the quantheir men. General Gardner then said to Gen-tity of their food exceeded the quality; and beans

eral Andrews: "General, I will now formally surrender my command to you, and for that purpose will give the orders to ground arms." The order was given and the arms were grounded.

After that General Andrews sent for the enemy's general officers, staff and field-officers. The line-officers were left with their companies and guard, composed of the Twenty-second Louisiana and Seventy-fifth New-York, placed over them. These formalities over, the glorious old flag of the Union was unfolded to the breeze from one of the highest bluffs facing the river, by the men of the Richmond-a battery thundered forth its salute, which rolled majestically up and down the broad surface of the Mississippi-and Port Hud

son was ours!

WHAT WE OBTAINED WITH IT.

Five thousand prisoners, as stated by General Gardner himself.

Serviceable: Three forty-two pound barbette guns; two thirty-two pound barbette guns; one thirty-two pound barbette gun, (rifled;) one eightinch barbette gun; two ten-inch barbette guns; one twenty-four pound barbette gun; four twenty-four pound barbette guns, (rifled;) one twelvepound barbette gun.

Disabled: One twenty-four pound barbette gun; one eight-inch barbette gun; one thirtytwo pound barbette gun; one twenty-four pound barbette gun; one thirty-pound barbette gun.

were what they had left to most depend upon. Their river fortifications were terribly effective, and might have resisted any amount of attack had they been impregnable elsewhere. Far down in the bowels of the lofty bluffs they had dug deep recesses, approached by steps cut out of the earth, and here their magazines were placed quite safe-owing to the enormous thickness of earth above-from any projectiles that could be sent against them. One or two "quaker guns" were found. On the fortifications to the land side, every thing told of the terrible efficiency of our artillery, which never did its work better. Foremost among these were Mack's, Holcomb's, and Rawle's batteries, the Indiana battery, and the naval battery of heavy guns, under the gallant Lieutenant Terry, of the Richmond, and his fine crew, who sent desolation along with every shot from their large pieces. The effect was, that soon after we began bombarding in earnest, every gun upon the front batteries was silenced; and they have so remained for weeks since; any one they replaced being knocked over as soon as we got the range of it. In speaking of how much we owe the artillery, we cannot speak too highly of the unsparing exertions and skilful dispositions of General Arnold, under whom the whole of this arm of the service was placed.

Collateral praise must necessarily fall upon those faithful underworkers who, although unseen at the surface, have nevertheless the most mighty results depending upon the accuracy and promptness of their observations-I mean the Topographical Engineers under Major Houston. Foremost among these were Lieutenant Ulfers, Mr. Oltmans, Mr. Robins, and the lamented Mr. Luce,

Recapitulation: Fifteen heavy guns, in good condition; five complete field-batteries, thirty-one guns in good condition, besides disabled guns; one thousand nine hundred and eleven shot and shell for heavy guns, various calibres; seven hundred and seventy-five cartridges; twelve thou-who was killed a short time ago while in the act of sand pounds of powder, made up in cartridges, for heavy guns, various calibres; thirty-two thousand pounds cannon powder; one hundred and fifty thousand cartridges, small arms; five thousand muskets.

It was with no little delight that I found myself riding at last over every portion of this longforbidden ground, noting the havoc which our cannon made not only in the ramparts but over the whole internal surface. Not a square rood but bore some indisputable proof of the iron deluge that had fallen upon it, in earth ploughed up, trees with the bark almost completely torn off by rifle shot, and some-twice the bulk of a man's body-fairly snapped in two by some solid ball, as easily as a walking-cane.

taking an observation. The enormous amount of personal hardships and dangers these gentlemen have to undergo, after going far ahead of the army and little exploring expeditions of their own in the enemy's country-the coolness and self-possession which their services require of them in every emergency, are things of which few people probably think, but which, nevertheless, have the most momentous bearing upon the success or failure of a general's plan of attack. They are the real scouts and pioneers, who have first detected many a new move of the enemy, and who first espy every new earth-work thrown up silently over night-every new gun put in position.

As we rode along the earth-works inside, it was curious to mark the ingenious ways in which the As to what they called the town of Port Hud- enemy had burrowed holes to shelter themselves son-a miserable little conglomeration of two or from shell and the intolerable rays of the sun. wooden buildings, and a nondescript church While at their work they must have looked like among them—the destruction is so complete that so many rabbits popping in and out of their warI cannot see how they escaped being utterly ren. The breastworks, instead of being straight swept away. I went into the old church, look-at the top, present a continuous succession of liting out for any crazy timber that might fall from tle hills and valleys, from the perpetual ploughing shattered roof or tumbling walls, with orifices made by cannon, larger than the windows, and found the whole floor strewed with beans, broken beams and laths, plaster, etc. If those were all

up of our artillery. As to the guns, there were many of them knocked clean away from their carriages, and looking as if some earthquake had heaved up the earth from under them. The