A Military Genius Part 1

A Military Genius.

by Sarah Ellen Blackwell.

PREFACE.

In commencing the attempt to portray a very remarkable career I had hoped for the cooperation of the person concerned so far, at least, as the supervision of any statements I might find it necessary to make.

But it was decided by her friends that it would not be well for her at present to be troubled with new projects, or even informed of them. It was at first a serious disappointment to me and seemed to increase my difficulties, but as I was allowed access to sources of family information I have been enabled to present a sketch, slight and inadequate, but authentic, and greatly desired by many distant friends. With continued improvement in health I trust that the wishes of Miss Carroll's friends may be better met by an autobiography taking the place of the present meager and imperfect sketch.

It should be at once understood that this is not a plea for Miss Carroll.

Her work has but to be fairly presented to speak for itself.

Her claim was settled once and forever by the evidence given before the first Military Committee of 1871, met to consider the claim, and reporting, through Senator Howard, unanimously endorsing every fact.

The a.s.sistant Secretary of War, Thomas A. Scott, the Chairman of the Committee for the Conduct of the War, Benjamin F. Wade, and Judge Evans, of Texas, testifying in a manner that was conclusive. These men knew what they were talking about and human testimony could no farther go. Congress, through its committees, has again and again endorsed the claim, and never denied it, being "adverse" only to award as involving national recognition.

Our great generals have left us one by one without ever antagonizing the claim, and General Grant advised Miss Carroll to continue to push her claim for recognition.

But this work is to be considered rather in the light of an historical research bearing on questions of the day.

Are our present laws and customs just toward women? Are women ever preeminently fitted for high offices in the State? Is it for our honor and advantage when so fitted to avail ourselves of the whole united intellect and moral power of men and women side by side in peril and in duty? Such a life as this gives to all these questions the authoritative answer of established facts.

NEW YORK, _April 21st, 1891_. (Summer address, Lawrence, Long Island, N. Y.)

Miss Carroll's address is 931 New Hamps.h.i.+re Avenue, Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C.

A SEARCH FOR THE DOc.u.mENTS.

Arriving as a stranger in Was.h.i.+ngton, knowing nothing of libraries and doc.u.ment rooms, Secretaries offices, and War departments, I was at first greatly at a loss. For many years I had had in my possession two very important doc.u.ments, the last memorial of 1878 and the report of the Military Committee thereon under General Bragg in 1881. With these two in my hand I proceeded to consult the Descriptive Catalogue of the Congressional Library. To my surprise, I found that these two very important doc.u.ments had been omitted from the index. Calling attention to the fact, we looked them up in the body of the volume and Mr.

Spofford immediately added them in pencil together with the other important doc.u.ments, in Miss Carroll's favor, which had also been omitted. When I made my way to the Senate doc.u.ment room I found that this important Miss. Doc. 58 had been omitted there also, having been set down under another name. Looking it up in the volume of Miscellaneous Doc.u.ments I again obtained the admission by Mr. Amzi Smith. In the list at the Secretaries office Miss. Doc. 58 was also omitted together with the last report by a Military Committee, under General Bragg, endorsing the claim in the most thorough going way. The index ending with an intermediate report mistakenly designated as _adverse_, though the previous reports were not thus heralded as favorable.

After the first report, as made by Senator Howard and the repeated endors.e.m.e.nts made by Wilson and Williams of succeeding Congresses, these two doc.u.ments are by far the most important and interesting.

The memorial of '78, containing additional evidence explaining some things, otherwise unaccountable, and making some very singular revelations. It is a mine of wealth for the future historian. At the Secretary's office I showed the doc.u.ments and stated that their exclusion must have been unfavorable to the presentation of the case.

I was not equally fortunate in obtaining their immediate admission, but trust the mistake has since been rectified.

The report marked as "adverse" would be more truly described as "admission of the incontestable nature of the evidence in support of the claim," admitting the services in every particular and being "adverse" only to award involving national recognition.

At the Secretary's office I obtained permission to see the file of the 41st Congress, 2d. session. There I saw the first short memorial with the plan of campaign attached as described by Thomas Scott. Then my investigations were temporarily ended by the outside of a doc.u.ment being shown me stating that the papers had been withdrawn by Samuel Hunt, thus agreeing with the statement made by him in Miss. Doc. 58, that they had been stolen from his desk while the committee were examining the claim.

I found it very difficult to obtain the earlier doc.u.ments. "Supply exhausted" being the answer that has long been given, but all can be looked up in the bound volumes.

When, at length, fairly started in my work I was disturbed by a rumor that Miss Carroll's papers, formerly placed on file at the War Department, were no longer to be found there. I set out as far as possible to investigate. Provided with an excellent letter of introduction to the Secretary of War I made my way, on March 6, 1891, to the vast building of the War Department and sent in my letter with a list of the doc.u.ments I wanted to see. Miss Carroll's Military papers, given in the Miss. Doc. 58, and a list of letters from the same memorial by Wade, Scott, and Evans.

The permission being kindly accorded I was transferred to the Record office and told that the file should be ready for me on the following day.

Taking with me the Miss. Doc. 58, an unpublished ma.n.u.script of Miss Carroll's, and specimens of the handwriting of Wade and Scott, I punctually put in an appearance, was transferred to the office of the Adjutant General, and Miss Carroll's file produced for my inspection.

I met with all possible courtesy and every facility for the examination. I found two of the papers on my list in her now familiar handwriting, and some others.

A letter to Secretary Stanton, of May 14, 1862, recommending the occupation of Vicksburgh and referring to Pilot Scott, stating that she had derived from him some of the important information which had lead to her paper to the War Department on Nov. 30, 1861, which had occasioned the change of campaign in the southwest and proved of such incalculable benefit to the national cause.

A paper of May 15th, 1862, advising that Memphis and Vicksburgh should be strongly occupied and the Yazoo river watched. Another letter to Stanton concerning her pamphlets and proposing to write another one in aid of Mr. Lincoln, unjustly a.s.sailed. There was a portion of a letter written in great haste from St. Louis. There was an interesting letter from Robert Lincoln when Secretary of War. A pet.i.tion from a group of ladies, asking for information concerning Miss Carroll's services and several other doc.u.ments, but most of the important papers on my list were not on the file.

After examining the papers for some time I asked to see the originals of the letters of Wade and Scott. I was told they were in another department and would take some time to look up, but a gentleman was politely detailed to conduct me there and look up the letters. I opened my Miss. Doc. 58 and pointed out the long list of letters of Mr. Wade's, on pages 23, 24, 25, and 26, and asked to see those first.

The gentlemen expressed his astonishment that, with _such_ a doc.u.ment in my hand, I should ask for _originals_. He said that the doc.u.ments printed by order of Congress were to all intents and purposes the same as the originals, as they were never so printed until those letters and papers had been examined and proved to be genuine. I asked if the printing was also a guarantee for Miss Carroll's papers as printed in that doc.u.ment, though we were now unable to find the originals. He replied a.s.suredly it was; that I could positively rely upon all that had been so printed. There was no going back upon the Congressional records. Other gentlemen came up and confirmed the statement.

Under these circ.u.mstances it seemed unnecessary to carry the investigation any further, so with thanks for the great friendliness and courtesy that I had met with I took up my precious Miss. Doc. 58 and departed with a slight intimation that if anything more should be needed they might have the pleasure of seeing me again.

The missing doc.u.ments, after being on file for 8 years, were sent on one or more occasions from the War Department to the Capitol for examination by committees.

On page 30 of the Miss. Doc. 58 we learn the reason, on testimony of Wade and Hunt (keeper of the records), why they are there no longer.

[Footnote: For list of doc.u.ments see pages 29 and 82.]

MISS CARROLL'S MILITARY MAPS.

On page 178 of the memorial of '78 Judge Evans, in one of the many repeated letters and statements of great interest that I have been obliged to omit for want of s.p.a.ce, relates how he stood beside Miss Carroll in her parlor at St. Louis when she was gathering the information for the preparation of her paper to the War Department of November 30, 1861, and its accompanying map. He says, "I have a very distinct recollection of aiding her in the preparation of that paper, tracing with her upon a map of the United States, which hung in her parlor, the Memphis and Charleston railroad and its connections southward, the course of the Tennessee, the Alabama, and the Tombigbee rivers, and the position of Mobile Bay; and when Henry fell she wrote the Department, showing the feasability of going either to Mobile or Vicksburg."

In his testimony given on page 85 of Miss. Doc. 179, he says, "On Miss Carroll's return from the West she prepared and submitted to the deponent, for his opinion, the plan of the Tennessee river expedition, as set forth in her memorial. Being a native and resident of that part of the section and intimately acquainted with its geography, and particularly with the Tennessee river, deponent was convinced of the vast military importance of her paper, and advised her to lose no time in laying the same before the War Department, which she did on or about November 30, 1861. The accompanying map, rapidly prepared by Miss Carroll, was made on ordinary writing paper. An unpretentious map, but fraught with immense importance to the national cause.

a.s.sistant Secretary of War Thomas A. Scott, the great railroad magnate and a man of remarkably acute mind, saw at a glance the immense importance of the plan; he hastened with it to Lincoln, and when her plan of campaign was determined on he studied her map with the greatest care before going West to consolidate the troops for the coming campaign.

The second map sent in with Miss Carroll's paper of October, 1862, when the army before Vicksburg was meeting with disastrous failure, was made on regular map paper, representing the fortifications at Vicksburg, demonstrating that they could not be taken on the plan then adopted and indicating the right course to pursue. Miss Carroll bought the paper for the map at s.h.i.+llington's, corner of Four-and-a-Half street and Pennsylvania avenue; sketched it out herself with blue and red pencils and ink and took it to the War Department.

On page 24 of Miss. Doc. 58, Judge Wade writes:

"Referring to a conversation with Judge Evans last evening he called my attention to Colonel Scott's telegram announcing the fall of Island No. 10 in 1862 as endorsing your plan, when Scott said, 'the movement in the rear has done the work.' I stated to the Judge, as you and he knew before, that your paper on the reduction of Vicksburg had done the work on that place, after being so long baffled and with the loss of so much life and treasure by trying to take it from the water; that to my knowledge your paper was approved and adopted by the Secretary of War and immediately sent out to the proper military authority in that Department."

On April 16, 1891, by permission of the kindly authorities of the War Department, search was made in the office of the Chief Engineer to see if, by chance, these maps might have come to the War Department. No trace or record was found and it seemed to be agreed that, considering the circ.u.mstances of extreme secrecy attending the inauguration of the campaign, it was unlikely that they should come there. Time, which so often corroborates the truth, may possibly bring those maps to light.

At present I cannot trace them.

It is proposed to follow this volume with another, ent.i.tled "Civil War Papers in Aid of the Administration," by Anna Ella Carroll, with notes by the author.

CHAPTER I.