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Page 17
Major-general Leonidas Polk is a tall, well-built man, about
fifty-five years of age; hair slightly gray; wears side whiskers,
which are as white as snow; aquiline nose, and firm mouth. His voice
is a good one for command, and having a West Point education,
improved by many years of research on military science, it was
expected he would make a skillful general; but the people were much
disappointed by his display of generalship in the Western
Department, and many clamored for his removal. It was at one time
thought he would be called to the Confederate cabinet as Secretary
of State; but this was never done. Many of his old friends and
admirers were pained to hear the report circulated, that the good
bishop indulged in profanity when he got too deep in his potations;
and as these reports were in part confirmed, his reputation suffered
greatly.
CHAPTER III.
ORDNANCE SERVICE.
Transferred to Ordnance. -- Camp Beauregard. -- Was my Oath
binding? -- Resources of the Rebels. -- Cannon stolen. --
Manufactured. -- A Rifling Machine. -- Beauregard's Bells.
-- Imported Cannon. -- Running Blockade. -- Silence of
Southern Papers. -- Small Arms made. -- Altered. --
Abundant. -- Earnestness of all Classes. -- Imported Arms.
-- England's Neutrality. -- Ammunition imported. --
Manufactured. -- Smuggled. -- A Railroad Episode. -- A
Deserting Engineer. -- A New Hand at the Throttle. --
Caution. -- A Smash Up and Pistols. -- Reconciliation. --
Result of Smash Up. -- Bowling Green. -- Size of Army. --
Sickness. -- Personal. -- Kindness of Nashville People. --
Moral and Religious Efforts for the Rebel Army. -- Vices
prevalent. -- Seminaries and Schools disbanded.
On the 14th of November, I was breveted second lieutenant for the
time, that I might take charge of a shipment of ammunition to Camp
Beauregard, near Feliciana, a small town in Graves county, Kentucky,
near the New Orleans and Ohio railroad, about seventeen miles from
Columbus. This place was held by a brigade of about four thousand
men, under Brigadier-general John S. Bowen, as a key to the
interior, to prevent the Federal forces from attacking Columbus in
the rear.
Having now spent six months in the infantry, and mastered the
details of a soldier's common duties, I was heartily sick of the
life. I sought a transfer to the ordnance department and obtained
it, with the rank and pay of ordnance sergeant. Acting on the
ever-present purpose, to keep my eyes and ears open and my mouth
generally shut, to see and hear all and say little, I knew the
ordnance department would open a new field for observation, which
might perchance be of use in the future,--a future that was very
uncertain to me then, for I could see no daylight as to escape. I
may as well admit here, that whenever I reflected on the violation
of an oath,--the oath to bear true allegiance to the Confederate
Government,--I had some hesitation. An older and wiser head would
perhaps have soon settled it, that an oath taken under constraint,
and to a rebel and usurped power, was not binding. But I shrunk from
the voluntary breaking of even an involuntary bond, in which I had
invoked the judgment of God upon me if I should not keep it. To
this should be added the consideration, which perhaps had too much
weight with me, that as I was trusted by the authorities with a
position of some importance, my honor was at stake in fulfilling all
my obligations. The idea that I should betray those who were
reposing confidence in me at the time and become a deserter, with
its odium forever following me, was more than I could contemplate
with pleasure. I state this as the exact truth in the case, not as
an apology for my conduct. Under this general feeling, I confess I
strove more to acquire knowledge where I was, than to escape from
the Rebel service.
During the six weeks I was attached to the ordnance department, I
learned some facts which it were well for the North to know. Since
reaching home, I hear wonder expressed at two things: the vast
energy of the South; and their unexpected resources, especially in
the procuring of cannon, small-arms, and ammunition. How have they
secured and manufactured an adequate supply of these, during such a
protracted and destructive struggle?
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