Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 12.djvu/49

 Capture of the Confederate Steamer Florida. 39

ley. After the smoke cleared away, that solid body was no where visible — only patches of men scattered all over the field, and running to the rear as fast as their legs could carry them.

But to return.

Such partial victories, however brilliant, could not alas ! retrieve the completeness of our rout. When the remnants of the Army of Tennes- see had reached Dalton, Georgia, all order had well-nigh vanished. The men for the most part, cowed and disheartened, both by the humili- ating rout they had undergone, and the sufferings they were enduring, began to desert in large numbers. General Bragg himself, left us soon after we reached Dalton. Whilst on the ridge he had done his best to rally the men, but he found his voice unheeded. It was then he discovered how little were the love and respect his soldiers bore him. He was forced to see all personal example entirely unnoticed, all threats and entreaties entirely disregarded, whilst the men shorn of that prestige which had always been theirs, and of that sturdy self- confidence which had served to win all former victories, worn out with two months' famine, privation and dissensions, execrated and de- nounced him as the author of all their misfortunes.

It was in this state of mind that we arrived at Dalton. Our suffer- ings were such as we had never known before, for the winter was upon us with all its rigor. And conscious of having inflicted one of the greatest calamities of the war, upon the cause we fought for, and of acting as a body, ignominiously, and yet feeling that we were not responsible for the result of affairs, and were not deserving of the stigma which the whole country would certainly put upon us, we were controlled by a feeling of reckless despair, when Johnston arrived.

Capture of the Confederate Steamer Florida, by the U. S. Steamer Wachusett.

Report of Lieutenant T. K. Porter.

[The following report we copy from Captain Bulloch's " Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe " where it is pubHshed for the first time.

The gallant and accomplished officer who commanded the Florida at the time, and who wrote the report was Lieutenaiit Thotnas K. Porter, who commanded "Porter's Battery" at Fort Donelson with such skill and courage, who was a brother of the soldier-statesman,