A Gun-Boat Fleet: Bowling Green and Post-office Department

The chaplain of each regiment was recognized at first as "Regimental Postmaster." Afterward, the mails were "brigaded." They were placed in canvas bags at the General Post-office and sent to each brigade, under charge of military authority. The Post-office Department had no further control of the army mails after they left the office at Washington city. The regularity with which the great armies of Grant, Sherman, Thomas and others in the West, as well as those in the Atlantic States, were supplied with mails, under the general superintendence of Colonel Markland, was marvelous. He and his assistants encountered dangers as appalling as those to which the soldiers were exposed--perils from bullets, fatigue and privations--yet they never lost a mail by capture, over which they had personal control. The mail was nearly always in advance of the armies, or moving in a direction to meet them. The number of letters thus carried was enormous. "For months," wrote Mr. S. J. Bowen, the Postmaster of Washington city, in a letter to me dated July 26, 1866, "we received and sent an average of 250,000 military letters per day. It is believed that this number was exceeded after General Sherman's army reached Savannah, and up to the time of the review of the troops in this city in the month of May, 1865." He says that the vast number of packages of clothing and articles of every kind which were sent by the mails, reached their destination as regularly as if the recipient lived in a large city. The only loss of any moment which this extra service inflicted upon the Post-office Department, was in mail-bags. "It is estimated," wrote Mr. Bowen, "that at least thirty thousand of these were sent out which never found their way back to this office, though every effort was made by us to have them returned." This army mail-service presents one of the moral wonders of the great conflict; and its value, in keeping whole armies in continual communication with friends at home, is incalculable. It was a powerful preventive of that terrible home-sickness with which, at first, raw troops are often prostrated; and it brought the sweet influence of the domestic circle to bear most powerfully in strengthening the men against the multifarious temptations of army life.

It was clearly perceived by General A. S. Johnston, that the fall of Fort Donelson rendered Bowling Green and Columbus untenable, and their evacuation was ordered to take place immediately. The troops at Bowling Green, who were menaced by the swiftly approaching advance of Buell's army under the energetic General Mitchel, were ordered to retire to Nashville. They did so, in haste, after destroying their property at Bowling Green valued at half a million dollars, and were followed by the Army of the Ohio. At the same time National gun-boats ascended the Cumberland River and co-operated with troops marching on that place. These movements created a fearful panic among the Secessionists. The governor of Tennessee (Harris) was made almost crazy by alarm. He rode through the streets of Nashville, with his horse at full speed, crying out that the papers in the Capitol must be removed, for he well knew what evidences of his treason they contained. He and his guilty compeers gathered as many of the archives as possible and fled by railway to Memphis, while officers of the banks in Nashville bore away the specie from the vaults of those institutions. Citizens, with their most valuable possessions that were portable, crowded the stations of railways that extended to Decatur and Chattanooga. Every kind of wheeled vehicle was brought into requisition, and the price of hack hire was raised to twenty-five dollars an hour. The authorities gave up all as lost. The public stores were thrown wide open, and everybody was allowed to carry off provisions and clothing without hindrance. The panic was more intense because of the sudden reaction from joy occasioned by a foolish boast of Pillow, on Saturday, that victory for the Confederates was sure. It was followed by a despatch from him while the armies were yet struggling and the Confederates had gained a slight advantage, in which he said: "Enemy retreating! Glorious result! Our boys following and peppering their rear!! A complete victory!!" The people were comfortably seated in the churches, an the ministers were prepared to preach congratulatory sermons, when the astounding news of the fall of Fort Donelson and the cowardly desertion of the post by Floyd and Pillow reached them. Pillow's act was a crushing commentary on his foolish boast, and the people pronounced his doom of disgrace before the authorities at Richmond had promulgated it.

Johnston and his troops moved rapidly southward from Nashville, and the city was surrendered to the Nationals by the municipal authorities, on the 26th of February, 1862. These events, following so closely upon the capture of Roanoke Island and the operations in its vicinity, produced great alarm throughout the Confederacy. The loyal people of the land were elated; and the Confederates being virtually expelled from Tennessee, the State government abdicated by its fugitive governor, and much latent loyalty being displayed, the National Government proceeded to re-establish civil government there. Andrew Johnson, of East Tennessee, was appointed provisional governor with the military rank of brigadier-general, and he entered upon his duties, at Nashville, on the 4th of March, 1862.