Blood, Tears, and Glory

THIS WEEK IN THE CIVIL WAR: Sept. 21-27, 1862

2008-09-26T10:44:00.001-04:00

FURLOUGH

After nearly a year of blogging, more than 200 posts, and over 100,000 words (more words than in the original book, Blood, Tears, and Glory), your correspondent is taking leave to work on other matters. If you are interested in the story of the American Civil War, told from a new point of view and through very human stories of love, death, courage and cowardice, genius and stupidity—all the qualities that make us human in a time of great stress—please consider buying the book. It’s available at Amazon or directly from the publisher: www.orangefrazer.com/btg/

Thank you for keeping up with my blog, and please, please feel free to send me, directly at Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com , any comments, complaints, suggestions, or insights into the Civil War, especially from a Midwestern point of view. After all—as the book points out—the outcome of the war was decided in the Western Theater, not the Eastern, and Midwesterners, especially Ohioans, played the biggest role. That story has been neglected for too long, and I hope others will join me in demanding prominence for the Western Theater in observances of the war’s 150^th anniversary, 2011-2015.

Thank you for your attention.

Jim Bissland

Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com

THIS WEEK IN THE CIVIL WAR: Sept. 14-20, 1862

2008-09-19T16:02:00.003-04:00

A VERY BIG WEEK

Encouraged by his victory at Second Bull Run, about 30 miles from Washington, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee slides by the nation’s capital and heads north, scaring the daylights out of loyal citizens in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and points north.

This is part of Lee’s “offensive-defensive” strategy, an effort with at least four (1) objectives: knock a very large hole in Northern morale, (2 regain Maryland for the Confederacy, (3) persuade England and France to recognize the Confederacy, and (4) scoop up some fodder and supplies from the lush Northern countryside. Oh, and it would be nice to wipe out McClellan’s Army of the Potomac if that fastidious and slow-moving Union commander offers an opening.

So Lee moves west of Maryland’s South Mountain, McClellan east.

Averaging 1,300 feet in height, South Mountain is a 50-mile-long ridge dividing eastern Maryland from its western panhandle. On Sunday Sept. 14, fighting breaks out at numerous passes over the mountain as Lee’s Confederates attempt to hold back McClellan’s Union forces, who are trying to get at Lee west of the mountain.

The Confederates fail to stop the Union soldiers, whose superior numbers blast their way through the passes. But the delay has allowed Lee and Jackson to arrange their forces on the high ground near, near Sharpsburg, Maryland.

On Monday, Sept. 15, Stonewall Jackson captures Harpers Ferry,Virginia (now West Virginia) taking 12,000 Union soldiers prisoner following a less-than-spirited defense. For that weak-hearted defense, soldiers blame Dixon S. Miles, the Union commander,. Dixon just happens to be killed shortly before the surrender…possibly by “friendly fire” from Union artillery manned by frustrated soldiers.

By Wednesday, Sept. 17, Lee, joined by Stonewall Jackson, has stationed his Confederates on the high ground west of Antietam creek, near Sharpsburg. Having moved too slowly to get there first, McClellan now must fight his way uphill. But he has about 87,000 men to Lee’s 45,000.

Once again, McClellan botches things. Instead of throwing everything he has at Lee, he attacks piecemeal, the attacks moving southward in the course of the day. The first, against Jackson, is finally stalled, and the second, at mid-day against the Confederate center, runs into a buzz saw featuring diehard Confederates hunkered down in “The Sunken Road,” soon to be known as “Bloody Lane.” Bodies pile up in heaps.

The third attac, in the afternoon, finally carries a stone bridge (still standing and now known as “Burnside Bridge”) and flows into Sharpsburg. But then Confederate Gen. A. P. Hill’s forces arrive, dressed in Union uniforms captured at Harpers Ferry. The Union attack stalls.

Thursday, Sept. 18 passes relatively quietly, neither side moving. Having taken heavy losses and realizing he is badly outnumbered, Lee removes his troops during the night of Sept. 18-19. Union soldiers awake Friday morning to find the enemy gone. Because Lee retreated, leaving the field to McClellan, this is considered a union victory.

But Antietam will be remembered for two things: it was the bloodiest single day in the Civil War, taking (from both sides) over 3,600 lives and wounding over 17,000 men. A total of about 1,800 men, from both sides, were missing or captured.

If McClellan had moved faster and used more of his men, he might have exacted a crushing defeat, instead of a “hollow victory.” But a win is a win, and on Saturday, Sept. 20, President Lincoln is emboldened to draft the Emancipation Proclamation, intending to issue it on Monday, to take effect next January.

Elsewhere, on Saturday, Sept. 20, Ohio’s Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans defeats Confederate Gen. Sterling “Pap” Price at Iuka, Mississippi. However, Rosecrans’ superior, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, blames Rosecrans for not pursuing Price with enough vigor and destroying him. Grant will never forgive or forget this failure.

So, as autumn arrives, Confederate attempts to retake the initiative from the Union, have failed, both in the eastern and western theaters. Northern civilians breathe easier, Europe declines to recognize the Confederacy, and freedom looms for many of the South's slaves.

THIS WEEK IN THE CIVIL WAR: Sept. 7-13, 1862

2008-09-12T14:16:00.004-04:00

ANTICIPATION

The Second Battle of Bull Run has ended badly for Union forces, the losing commander, Maj. Gen. John Pope, has been dispatched to fight the Indians far, far away, and—to the surprise of everyone, including himself—the recalcitrant Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan not only retains command of the Army of the Potomac, but is given Pope’s former command, the Army of Virginia. By order of President Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln’s advisers, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton the loudest, have urged the President to ditch Little Mac for dragging his feet when he should have been rushing to Pope’s aid at Bull Run. But Lincoln needs the reluctant warrior’s talents at organizing, training, and inspiring troops—and so, this President, not afraid to make an unpopular decision—re-anoints McClellan to the sound of teeth gnashing throughout the capital.

As the week wears on, McClellan works on integrating the Army of Virginia into the Army of the Potomac while trying to figure out what’s Lee's intentions are. Washington shivers at the possibility it might be in Lee’s sights, but the nation’s capital is heavily defended and the Confederates choose to slide by, moving into Maryland instead.

Everyone wonders: what is Lee going to do? Savage Maryland and claim it for the Confederacy? Invade Pennsylvania and capture the state capital at Harrisburg? Move on to Philadelphia or even New York? Fear racks loyal citizens in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and even some New Yorkers wonder if they should start packing their bags.

On Tuesday, September 9, Lee reveals his intentions to his commanders. He orders his forces into positions around Maryland and tells Stonewall Jackson to march on Harpers Ferry. The plan for his “Maryland campaign” is laid out in his “Special Order #191.” The order will achieve far more circulation than Lee could ever imagine

McClellan continues shadowing Lee and wondering what his next move will be. Edges of the Union and Confederate armies brush each other and crackling firefights and skirmishes break out across Maryland and nearby Virginia.

Far to the west, Cincinnati—the Union’s biggest city west of the Appalachians—is suffering its own terrors. Confederate Gens. Braxton Bragg and Edmund Kirby Smith have moved through Tennessee and are intending to drive north through Kentucky, reclaim the state for the Confederacy and perhaps cross the Ohio River and capture Cincinnati and Covington, just across the Ohio River in Kentucky. In Fact, Smith sends a force under Gen. Henry Heth to seize Covington and Cincinnati

But Union Gen. Lew Wallace (later to be famous as the author of Ben Hur) is sent to prepare the city’s defenses. Citizens rally, aided by Cincinnati’s African Americans, who are organized into a “Black Brigade” to throw up fortifications in Cincinnati and nearby Covington. The “Black Brigade” is the first organized use of black men for defense of the Union.

Because most of Ohio’s soldiers are engaged elsewhere, Gov. David Tod calls for civilian volunteers to rush to Cincinnati’s defense. Nearly 16,000 farmers, clerks, and school teachers from throughout Ohio, wearing their civilian clothes and lugging weapons ranging from horse pistols to squirrel guns, show up and take up positions into the trenches. They will become famed as the "Squirrel Hunters." When not on duty, they are housed in churches, meeting halls, and warehouses and are fed in the city’s Fifth Street Markethouse. Light skirmishing breaks out near Covington.

On Saturday, September 13, however, word reaches Cincinnati that Heth’s main force of Confederates has changed direction and the city is no longer threatened. Then something amazing happens. Spontaneously and without a leader, the city’s thousands of defenders, scattered across miles of entrenchments and mostly out of sight of each other, burst into simultaneous, triumphant song. A mighty chorus of “John Brown’s Body” rises from thousands of throats and floats above the hills and across the river. Then the Squirrel Hunters disappear into the city’s taverns to wet down those throats before heading for home.

On the same day but far to the east, Union soldiers lounging about Confederate Gen. D. H. Hill’s former campground in Maryland find a copy of Lee’s “Special Order No. 191.” It had slipped from the possession of a careless Confederate who can only be described in Twenty-first Century terms as a klutz. Learning his opponent’s plans, McClellan chortles that he has “Bobby Lee” where he wants him—but he doesn’t rush to take advantage of his valuable knowledge. In the meantime, word filters back to Lee of lost order and McClellan’s brief advantage evaporates.

With two massive armies only miles apart in Maryland, what will happen next? And is Ohio truly safe?

THIS WEEK IN THE CIVIL WAR: Aug. 31-Sept. 6, 1872

2008-09-05T14:09:00.002-04:00

AFTERMATH

For soldiers in the Civil War, the worst part of a battle may not be the anxious moments just before it or the frantic moments during it. At least, adrenaline is pumping in a fight., and while there can be terrifying moments, much of the battle passes in a rush of energy, most of the men focused on their tasks. (After the war. John Calvin Hartzell, a lieutenant in the 105 Ohio, will call this “the exultation or ecstasy of battle,” explaining that, “in such a state of mind danger and death have no terrors.”)

It i the hours and days just after a battle that can be the worst. For the losers, there is crushing shame spiked with fear of capture as they attempt to flee. But for the winners occupying the battlefield, the triumph is dampened by the cost of victory. The field is littered with the wreckage of men and equipment. Scattered among the smashed cannon and discarded rifles and knapsacks are hundreds of bodies, some motionless, some moaning, waiting for aid that—in some cases—may never come. Because Civil War battles are fought most frequently during warm weather, the wounded men beg for water as they lie unsheltered, exposed to a broiling sun.

Surviving soldiers roam the battlefield, looking for comrades, scavenging for supplies. (Hartzell took a pair of new socks from the corpse of a Confederate.) As the days go by, some of the wounded men—left behind by their own army--remain on the field while others die. Worms infest open wounds of living men and terrible odors arise from decaying corpses. The best that many of these corpses will receive is a hasty burial in a trench or shallow grave near where they fell, the men’s identities disappearing beneath the earth, their families left to wonder why their letters have stopped coming.

So it is after the battle of Second Manassas (also known as II Bull Run). The battle had peaked on Saturday, August 31 as Col. Nathaniel McLean’s “Ohio Brigade” made a goal-line stand on Henry House Hill. At heavy cost, McLean’s men hold back Lee’s Confederates just long enough for most of Union Gen. John Pope’s Army of Virginia to escape the field and head for the safety of the nation’s capital, 30 miles away.

By Sunday, Pope has his tattered army gathered around Centreville, on the Washington side of Bull Run Creek, the soldiers panicky, officers angry at poor leadership by the generals. Soon, the generals themselves will be going public, blaming each other, a circular firing squad with Pope squarely in the middle.

Two fresh corps from the lead-footed Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan finally have arrived to reinforce Pope, but it is too late to strike back at Lee and save the day. Lee has come up short as well. Still on the opposite side of Bull Run, he is unable to cut off Pope’s fighting retreat and so Lee cannot finish the battle by destroying his enemy. By and large, Pope’s army, though severely mauled, is able to escape to the shelter of Washington’s defenses.

But not Pope. As much as Pope blames others—especially McClelland and Fitz-John Porter—it is clear to Lincoln and General-in-chief Halleck that responsibility for the defeat rests most of all on the loud-mouthed Illinoisan. By the end of the week, Pope will lose his command and be assigned to fight Indians far from the war’s main stages.

Pope’s departure is not a surprise, but what happens to McClellan is. Despite urging from Secretary of War Stanton and others, Lincoln refuses to dismiss Little Mac. Instead, McClellan not only keeps command of the Army of the Potomac but is given the task of folding into it Pope’s old command, the Army of Virginia.

Lincoln's advisers gnash their teeth, but the President knows what he is doing. McClellan tends to fade under the pressure of battle, but he is a superb organizer, trainer—and inspirer—of men. Right now, that is what is needed most of all. Lincoln needs McClellan's special gifts to restore the Union’s main army in the East to fighting form.

McClellan himself is surprised by Lincoln's decision. Since returning from the Virginia Peninsula, he has been bracing himself for removal from command. But after meeting with President Lincoln in the White House on Tuesday, September 2, he rides jauntily into the camp of Brig. Jacob D. Cox, an Ohioan who commands the Kanawha Brigade, and calls out, “Well, General, I am in command again!”

THIS WEEK IN THE CIVIL WAR: Aug. 23-30, 1862

2008-08-29T16:21:00.003-04:00

A Very Bad Week

This will turn into a very bad week for Maj. Gen. John Pope, the blustering bully who commands the newly formed Federal Army of Virginia.

Last week found Pope north of the Rappahannock River, Lee and Jackson south of it. But then Stonewall Jackson led his fast-marching infantry, nicknamed his “foot cavalry,” on a long looping move around Pope’s right flank, crossing the river and winding up in Pope's rear. There, on Wednesday, August 27, Jackson’s men fall like wolves on Pope’s huge supply base at Manassas Junction. What the hungry Confederates can’t consume or carry away, they destroye. Then they settle down in the shelter of a railroad embankment nearby to await developments.

As Lee grows confident that McClellan’s Army of the Potomac no longer poses a threat to Richmond by way of the Virginia Peninsula, the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia crosses the Rappahannock as well. CSA Gen. James Long street follows Lee with still more men.

Pope blunders about, trying to figure out where Jackson is. By now, a large portion of the Confederate forces have slid in between between Pope and Washington. On Thursday, August 28, portions of both the Union and Confederate armies clash at Groveton, only a few miles from the old Bull run battlefield. This nasty little fight begins late afternoon, takes many casualties on both sides, and doesn’t end until around midnight.

Throughout the Second battle of Bull Run, as the unfolding drama will be named, Pope repeatedly misjudges his enemy. Thinking Jackson was retreating, on Friday, August 22, he launches an uncoordinated series of piecemeal head-on attacks on Jackson, who is not retreating at all. In fact, he is being reinforced by Long street.

The next day culminates the battle. Pope launches his largest attack yet, but he still doesn’t realize the Long street’s reinforcements have arrived. The Union attack iss repulsed and Lee uses Longstreet’s force to envelope Pope’s weakened right flank.

Although Pope had successfully directed a slow, methodical siege at New Madrid, Missouri, and Island No. 10 on the Mississippi, he seems constitutionally incapable of managing a fast-moving, hard-fighting battle in open country. His badly beaten army is forced into a panicky retreat towards Washington.

That a retreat saving much of Pope’s army from total destruction is even possible was not due to Pope’s command skills nor to enthusiasticsupport from McClellan’s Army of the Potomac. Even President Lincoln suspects Little Mac deliberately delayed his return from the Peninsula campaign, allowing only some advance units to provide belated help to Pope.

The greatest glory for Union forces on Saturday, August 30, is won by an all-Ohio brigade commanded by Col. Nathaniel C. Mclean, a Cincinnati lawyer in civilian life. McLean deploys his battle-tested by worn-down brigade along Henry House Hill, the 73^rd and 35^th Ohio his left, the 75^th and 55^th Ohio on the right, and Battery K of the 1^st Ohio Light Artillery in the center.

McLean’s brigade spends Saturday afternoon beating off furious Confederate attacks until the main body of Pope’s army is able to escape the battlefield. A modern iistorian has written that no Union brigade played “a more critical role in the battle than McLean’s, and no regiment more than the 55^th Ohio.”

Pope’s reputation, however, is in tatters, and McClellan’s is badly tarnished. Within days, each will have a new assignment.

THIS WEEK IN THE CIVIL WAR: Aug. 17-23, 1862

2008-08-22T19:44:00.002-04:00

“One pinch of owl dung”

The Rappahannock stretches for nearly 200 miles across northern Virginia, rising in the western mountains and flowing eastward to empty into Chesapeake Bay a few miles south of the Potomac. The river forms a natural boundary between the North and the South…and during this week, a bloody one.

Day after hot August day, Union Gen. John Pope’s Army of Virginia clings to the river’s northern shore, fighting a never-ending series of skirmishes with Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Both Pope and Lee has been in command their respective armies for less than three months, but, clearly, he is rattling Pope.

To add insult to injury, the Army of Northern Virginia’s newly appointed cavalry commander, James E. B. (“Jeb”) Stuart, is raising havoc with hit-and-run raids on the Union army,. Stuart’s crowning achievement is the capture of Pope’s own baggage…reportedly including his strategy papers, a uniform coat, cash, and personal belongings. Stonewall Jackson raids Pope’s huge supply base at Manassas Junction, generously supplying themselves from the stores there, and burning the rest.

Pope gets little sympathy from his own men. Pope’s loud-mouthed braggadocio has alienated officers and enlisted men alike. One of his generals even sputters, “I don’t care for John Pope one ounce of owl dung!” And the idea is spreading among the men that Pope was a “Jonah”—a bearer of bad luck.

Bad luck is, in fact, heading Pope’s way, but not in the form of yet another hard-hitting Confederate general. It is Pope’s bad luck to be relying for reinforcements on Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, who is leading his Army of the Potomac back from his failed campaign on the Virginia Peninsula.

McClellan is sulking because he thinks he should have been allowed to continue the Peninsula Campaign, even though it was apparent to everyone else that it was going nowhere. Moreover, McClellan and Pope don’t like each other. As a result, McClellan’s huge army is moving with leaden feet in Pope’s direction. Later, President Lincoln will suspect McClellan’s slow pace was deliberate.

But that thought will occur only after the Union disaster that is looming now.

THIS WEEK IN THE CIVIL WAR: Aug. 10-16, 1862

2008-08-14T16:30:00.003-04:00

Storm Clouds

It’s another of those in-between times in the Civil War, with no major battles but plenty of action nonetheless. From Virginia to Missouri, firefights are erupting almost no one ever heard of then or since (e.g., Switzler’s Mill, Missouri; Brown’s Plantation, Mississippi; Medon, Tennessee; Clarendon, Arkansas). Each clash is of little significance in itself, but taken together, they form a thunderous and deadly chorus. More importantly, the military forces of each spend this week moving with grim intent.

In Virginia, Union Gen. George B. McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign against Richmond has proven a flop, so his immense Army of the Potomac is leaving Harrison’s Landing on the James River, heading in the general direction of Washington. Shadowing McClellan, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of the Northern Virginia is moving towards Gordonsville, part-way between the opposing capitals of Richmond and Washington. Having left the Shenandoah Valley and moved into north central Virginia, Stonewall Jackson’s force has already whipped one division of the Union Gen. John Pope’s newly created three-division Army of Virginia. Pope and McClellan are expected to link up and turn their mighty host on the Confederates.

Meanwhile, Confederate Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith is leading 21,000 men from Knoxville to the strategic Cumberland Gap (which he will bypass), isolating the Union force there), then into Kentucky to wreak havoc on Union forces based there. Meanwhile, Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg is sending those redoubtable raiders, Nathan Bedford Forrest and John Hunt Morgan, into middle Tennessee. Soon, Bragg will advance into Kentucky and join forces with Kirby Smith. That forces Union Gen. Don Carlos Buell to abandon his snail’s pace advance on Chattanooga and head north from Alabama to turn back the Confederates in Tennessee and Kentucky. Meanwhile, Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant is stuck in Corinth, Mississippi, surrounded by enemies, his troops too dispersed to mount a significant offensive. He is further handicapped by having to supply reinforcements to Buell.

So far this year, the bottom line in Virginia has been stalemate, while in the Western Theater Union forces have enjoyed a succession of victories, but are under heavy pressure form the Confederates. The war has not reached a turning point, but the weeks to come will bring a number of critical moments.

THIS WEEK IN THE CIVIL WAR: Aug. 3-9, 1862

2008-08-09T18:55:00.003-04:00

What Happened to the 66th Ohio

In June 1862, Maj. Gen. John Pope, an Illinoisan with a big voice and an even bigger ego, was enjoying a furlough in St. Louis, when he was he summoned east by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. Stanton had a new job for Pope.

Pope had scored an impressive success that spring. His Army of the Mississippi, with considerable help from the Union navy, had out-maneuvered the Confederates at New Madrid, Missouri, and nearby Island No. 10. Pope’s troops had flanked the heavily armed Island No.10 by digging a canal bypassing it. In one fell swoop, Pope’s army captured several thousand Confederate soldiers and a lot of ordnance, regained control of an important portion of the Mississippi River, and did it at a cost of only a few casualties.

With Grant temporarily under a shadow for lack of preparedness at Shiloh, Pope looked like the winner the Lincoln Administration badly needed in the Eastern Theater. McClellan’s huge Virginia Peninsula Campaign was turning sour and three smaller Union armies were floating around elsewhere in Virginia without much coordination. Pope was told to combine the three smaller armies into one of three corps, to be called the Army of Virginia, and to get something done.

But Pope had two problems: He was a blowhard who quickly alienated his own men and he had the bad luck to inherit Nathaniel P. Banks as one of his three corps commanders. Banks was a Massachusetts politician, one of the “political generals,” and a military commander of very limited ability. Banks had been beaten by Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley and now Banks thirsted for revenge. When Jackson’s force came into view near Cedar Mountain (about 75 miles northwest of Richmond), Banks recklessly attacked (Saturday, August 9).

Banks was driving two of Jackson’s divisions when Confederate reinforcements arrived. Banks had no reserves and the engagement turned into a Union disaster. By the time it was all over, Banks’ II Corps had been so badly damaged that an infuriated Pope had to detach it for recuperation.

Although Banks’ corps was composed mostly of eastern troops, it included four regiments from Ohio. Fighting under a scorching sun and soon outnumbered, the 66^th Ohio lost almost half its members to death, wounds, or capture. Some men died of sun stroke. The 66^th was so decimated that not one of its 10 companies could muster enough men for a color guard.

Cedar Mountain was the curtain-raiser for II Bull Run, where Pope demonstrated his inability to control a large, fast-moving battle. Because the II Corps had been sent to the rear, however, it played no role in Pope’s debacle at Bull Run—which, if any good can be found in the bloody days of August 1862, is one of the few blessings conferred upon the Ohioans.

THIS WEEK IN THE CIVIL WAR: July 27-August 2, 1862

2008-08-02T20:02:00.003-04:00

Dog Days

As the dog days of summer wheel from July into August, the United States resembles a museum’s electric map, flashes of light sparkling across much of the continent as fire fights erupt randomly. Patrols from opposing camps run into each other, cavalrymen hungry for excitement stage raids, nervous sentinels fire at unidentified shapes moving in the dark.

In the Eastern Theater, this is merely an interlude between the ignominious end of McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign and the ignominious debut of Maj. Gen. John Pope at Second Bull Run. Both men—of whom so much is expected—will be removed from the scene before the year is over.

In the Western Theater, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s headquarters in Corinth, Mississippi, hums with activity, as reports of back-and-forth clashes with Braxton Bragg’s Confederates erupt here, there, and everywhere. Typical is the news from Maj. Gilbert Moyers of the 3^rd Michigan Cavalry, which Grant summarizes in a message (July 28^th) to General-in-Chief Henry W. Halleck:

Three companies of cavalry under Maj. Moyers went out southeast from Tuscumbia to attack a part of rebel cavalry which had surprised and captured two companies of Gen. Thomas’s command and burnt the bridge near Courtland. They found the enemy about two hundred strong and made the attack, losing 23 killed, wounded, and missing. Does not state whether the enemy were repulsed….

Bragg claims this action near Spangler’s Mill, Alabama, was a Confederate victory.

And so it goes—little victories and small losses, important mostly to those involved. Endless paperwork signifying men trying to kill each other. In one day (July 27), McClernand sends eight alarming telegrams to Grant, claiming threatening movements of Confederate troop movements and requesting reinforcements. Nothing much happens.

And so it goes. North of Grant, in 5^th Division headquarters at Memphis, Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman also has his hands full. He is being badgered by slave owners who want him to track down and return runaway slaves. Naturally, Sherman has little patience with the slave owners. Instead, runaway slaves reaching him are set to work building a fort for the Federals.

Another problem for Sherman is the price of salt, needed for preserving meat for the soldiers. Speculators have driven the price up to $100 a barrel. “I am getting tired of this, & of volunteer service and would escape if I could,” Sherman grumbles in a letter to Ellen.

He also tells her he is surrounded by the enemy sympathizers.: “Secesh on both sides and all round,” he writes ”and…they hope & pray that the Southern Army will in due time destroy us.”

THIS WEEK IN THE CIVIL WAR: July 20-26, 1862

2008-07-26T17:45:00.002-04:00

Initiative Lost

Major Generals Grant and Sherman are not enjoying the summer of 1862.
In their respective headquarters at Corinth, Mississippi, and Memphis, Tennessee, these two of Ohio are enduring sweltering heat, hostile neighbors, and unwelcome visits from Confederate raiders.

On paper, Grant and his Army of the Tennessee occupy large portions of western Tennessee and northern Mississippi, with Sherman holding down the area around Memphis, with—assisted by Brig. Gen. William S. Rosecrans (another Ohioan)—holding down the rest.

And “holding down”—or trying to—was about all Grant and his commanders could do.

Before Grant’s predecessor, Henry W. Halleck, departed for Washington and the post of general-in-chief, he essentially disbanded the huge force he had assembled for his advance on Corinth.
Committed to the European theory of winning wars by outmaneuvering the enemy instead of outfighting him, then holding onto captured territory, Halleck spread his forces thinly across the Western Department. “The great army…which General Halleck had so well assembled at Corinth, was out on the defensive,” Sherman wrote.

That left Grant holding a lot of territory occupied by unfriendly civilians and crisscrossed by Confederate parties, unable to marshal a big enough force to launch a serious offensive. As a result, the summer in ’62 in the Western Theater was a quiet one, disturbed mostly by skirmishes and small fights here and there, the sounds of mosquitoes being swatted, and frustrated soldiers grumbling.

When reports reached Grant’s ears that Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg was daringly moving across the region with a significant force, the Union commander could only stand by in frustration.

After the war, Grant wrote, “The most anxious period of the war, to me, was during the time the Army of the Tennessee was guarding the territory acquired by the fall of Corinth and Memphis and before I was sufficiently reinforced to take the offensive.”

And Sherman recalled, “At the time when general Halleck was summoned from Corinth to Washington…I surely expected of him immediate and important results.” But Halleck could not deliver, and “important results’ in the Western Theater would not occur until Grant was turned loose.

THIS WEEK IN THE CIVIL WAR: July 13-19, 1862

2008-07-18T14:25:00.001-04:00

In Command, but Defanged

On Thursday, July 11, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, had received a cryptic telegram from his superior, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck. Halleck was commander of the Union’s Western Department, headquartered in Corinth, Mississippi.

Grant commanded the Army of the Tennessee and, with headquarters in Memphis, was busy trying to suppress Confederate raiders in western Tennessee. It was a sullenly Confederate region the Union had reclaimed but was barely holding onto. Union victories at Fort Donelson, and Shiloh, Tennessee, as well as the takeover of Corinth, had supposedly wrested away chunks of the western Confederacy—but the Confederates weren’t quite ready to give up and leave.

Halleck’s telegram told Grant, “You will immediately repair to this place [and] report to these headquarters.” Puzzled, Grant wired back immediately: “Am I to repair alone or take my staff?” Having had his command taken away from once before, Grant was understandably wary. He didn’t know that Lincoln had just appointed Halleck general-in-chief of the Union armies and had been ordered to Washington, where—among other things—he was expected to bring the slow-footed, argumentative Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan into line.

That was an assignment Halleck had resisted, but Lincoln’s orders left him no choice. In a day filled with flying telegrams, Halleck immediately replied to Grant, “This place will be your headquarters. You can judge for yourself.”

Grant had been in command at Memphis for only a short time. With wife Julia in tow, he rushed to Corinth, where he learned he was taking over much of Halleck’s old command In addition to the Army of the Tennessee, he would be in command of the Army of the Mississippi, Maj. Gen. John Pope having also been summoned east. Grant would now be in charge of a vast area encompassing north Mississippi, west Tennessee, and Kentucky west of the Cumberland River. Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell would have a separate command, meaning the Western Department would revert to the divided responsibility to which Halleck had successfully objected only months before.

All this was good news and bad news for Grant. The good part was that the overbearing and underperforming Halleck would now be hundreds of miles away, still Grant’s commander, but less able to look over his shoulder and micro-manage him.. The bad news was that Halleck had broken up the massive force of 120,000 men that he had led into Corinth. He ordered its fragments to hunker down in defensive positions through the Western department, thereby forcing Grant into strictly defensive warfare.

Unlike Halleck, Grant was an aggressive fighter. Now, however, he was pinned down, forced into swatting Confederate raiders right and left and unable to mount meaningful offenses. In his memoirs years later, Grant could sigh for what might have been. If Halleck had only left him a sizeable force, Grant wrote, “The positive results might have been a bloodless advance to Atlanta, to Vicksburg, or to any other desired point south of Corinth in the interior of Mississippi.”

It was yet another of the war's might-have-beens, one of its greatest lost opportunities.

This Week in the Civil War: July 6-12, 1862

2008-07-12T15:55:00.003-04:00

War of Nerves

It takes nerve to be a soldier, but not all nerves are alike. When nerve means courage or daring, it is useful in the conduct of war, but when it means arrogance or gall, it isn’t useful at all. In this, the second week of July 1862, both kinds are on display.

Unfortunately for the Union this week, a Confederate is displaying notable acts of daring in the Western Theater, while in the Eastern Theater, a top commander iss displaying extraordinary arrogance.

In the Western Theater, a dashing Kentuckian named John Hunt Morgan (pictured upper left) is running circles around Union forces, capturing Federal strongholds and frightening the citizenry of Kentucky and nearby Ohio. On Wednesday, July 9, Morgan and his cavalry capture Tompkinsville, Kentucky, after whipping Union defenders. The next day, Thursday, July 10, the emboldened Morgan issues a ringing proclamation to the citizens of the border state, urging them to “rise and arm, and drive the Hessian invaders from their soil.”

The fact that few Kentuckians rose and armed themselves on Morgan’s behalf did nothing to quiet the fears of Cincinnatians, who understandably feared that their important city had fallen squarely into Morgan’s sights.—especially after Morgan captured Lebanon, Kentucky on Saturday, July 12. Tompkinsville was about 180 miles from Cincinnati; Lebanon was about 65 miles closer.

Morgan is a Southerner in the cavalier tradition: tall, handsome, daring, and courtly. His thousand-mile hit-and-run dash through a Kentucky dominated by Union forces is an act of pure nerve—and, although he will return to base in Tennessee without harming Ohio, he will return next year and do exactly that.

Another kind of nerve is on stunning display hundreds of miles east, on the Virginia Peninsula.

There, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan (pictured upper right) and his huge Army of the Potomac have paused to catch their breath and decide what to do next. The Federals have been headed off, by Robert E. Lee, from their ultimate goal: the capture of the Confederate capital of Richmond. McClellan doesn’t realize it yet, but his elaborate, ponderous “Peninsula Campaign” has been for naught. This show is over.

But instead of studying what went wrong in his command and figuring out how to do better, McClellan sits down, takes pen in hand, and presumes to tell President Abraham Lincoln what kind of war he should conduct and how to conduct it. He dares to tell the President what his goals should be—and freeing the slaves, Little Mac tells Lincoln, must not be one of them. The Union armies must fight only to reunite the country while inflicting a minimum of damage on the South. The strategy must be to maneuver Rebel armies into defeat, instead of destroying them.

But McClellan exceeds his franchise by daring to tell the civilian government what its policies should be. This follows by a few days a telegram to Lincoln in which McClellan blamed the President for the losses on the Virginia Peninsula. Although McClellan’s forces outnumbered Lee’s, the union commander claimed he had been denied the reinforcements that would have made the vital difference. McClellan’s wire to Lincoln was so virulent that shocked War Department clerks deleted the worst of it before passing it on to the President.

On Tuesday, July 8, Lincoln comes to the Virginia Peninsula to review the troops and meet with Mc Clellan. Lincoln is having increasing doubts about Little Mac, and although he isn’t ready to dump the cocky little Philadelphian quite yet, that day will come.

On Friday, July 11, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, the Union’s top commander in Western Theater, is summoned east to become General-in-Chief of all the armies. Ever since McClellan was relieved of that post in March, Lincoln and Stanton have tried to fulfill its responsibilities themselves. It has become obvious—especially with growing questions about McClellan—that a professional soldier is needed. For the moment, at least, Halleck is highly regarded—but he will be tested severely.

OHIOANS ELSEWHERE IN THE CIVIL WAR: On Tuesday, July 8, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Army of the Tennessee, writes Ellen Ewing Sherman, now in residence in Lancaster, Ohio. Ellen has been campaigning to bring husband William Tecumseh Sherman home for a rest. Grant writes Ellen that he offered Cump a leave, but the offer was refused: Sherman claimed that “he was improving and would take good care of himself; and further his services could not be spared at this time.” So Grant and Sherman continue the struggle to contain Confederate activity in restless western Tennessee.

From his perch atop Flat Top Mountain in western Virginia, Col. Rutherford B. Hayes of the 23^rd Ohio is grasping that McClellan has been repulsed at Richmond, but is “relieved and satisfied” that McClellan’s army is still in good shape and good position. Hayes is hoping to be sent to eastern Virginia, where he can see more action, and, in fact, on Saturday, July 12, gets orders to move 14 miles down the mountain to a new camp.

This Week in the Civil War: June 29-July 5

2008-07-01T11:17:00.002-04:00

Busy Work

Out from under Halleck’s fishy eye and back in command of the Army of the Tennessee, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant is busy shaping things up in his new headquarters town, Memphis, Tennessee. Captured a month ago by a flotilla of Federal warships, the city remains determinedly and bitterly Confederate. “Affairs in this city seem to be in rather bad order,” Grant wrote Halleck the day after he arrived (June 23). After a week of observing things close up, he adds, “There is great disloyalty manifested by the citizens of this place.”

But Grant had promised, “In a few days I expect to have everything in order,” and so he has been busy. A provost guard has been given three regiments with which to keep order; Union soldiers have been ordered to behave themselves; local ministers have been told to stop leading prayers for the Confederacy (but prayers for the Union are not required); troops have been dispatched in various directions to protect roads, telegraph lines, and railroad track; cavalry has been sent into the countryside on scouting missions.

But Grant's Army of the Tennessee is spread thin, unable to be everywhere at once. Confederate forces under Nathan Bedford Forrest and others continue to roam western Tennessee, cutting transportation lines, capturing supply convoys, and taking prisoners. Bands of Rebel cavalry are “as thick as thieves,” grumbles Maj. Ten. William Tecumseh Sherman in a letter to his wife, Ellen. One of Grant’s division commanders, Sherman on June 27 is about 40 miles from Memphis, sweating in intense heat and swatting at Confederate raiders like flies.

Like Grant, Sherman has his hands full. His men had only just repaired some railroad bridges destroyed by the Confederates when the Rebels promptly derailed the only locomotive available to the Union forces in the area. “The Secesh” also captured a hundred Union men returning from furlough. And the news keeps getting worse. Confederate forces are said to be massing at Holly Springs, Mississippi, and Sherman will have to attack them.

“You must not suppose the war is at an end or anything like it,” Sherman writes Ellen as he launches into yet another pessimistic lecture on Southern attitudes. “I am always discouraged when I come in contact with the people,” he explains. “They all seem so deeply bitter or indifferent that I see no hope to arise from them.”

Making things worse is the scorching sun of early summer, so debilitating that that many of Sherman’s men collapse and have to be carried away in wagons. “I don’t think one half our force is fit for duty,” he tells Ellen. Sherman himself was so weakened by the sun that he, too, had to take to riding in a wagon instead of on his own horse. He tells Ellen that he has decided to replace the “small military cap” (a kepi) he had worn with a (wide-brimmed) straw hat from Memphis.

ELSEWHERE WITH THE OHIOANS: Col. Rutherford B. Hayes and the 23^rd Ohio continue to roost on Flat Top Mountain in western Virginia, enjoying the view and not doing much except looking for a new camping ground with a better water supply. All week, reports from McClellan’s campaign on the Virginia Peninsula reach Hayes’ isolated camp. The reports are mixed, to say the least: McClellan has entered Richmond, McClellan has been defeated, Richmond is burning, McClellan has lost 15,000 to 20,000 men and has retreated.

“But these reports are so deceptive as to complicated and extensive movements that I must hear further before I give up to gloomy anticipation,” Hayes tells his diary. He adds, “But I am anxious!”

ELSEWHERE IN THE CIVIL WAR: On Sunday, June 29, a disorganized Confederate pursuit keeps McClellan retreating, his rear guard fighting furiously. Most of the Federals get away, but 2,500 sick and wounded are left behind at Savage’s Station. The next day, a major battle erupts at Frayser’s Farm and, although Lee loses an opportunity here to split McClellan’s army, there is a larger meaning: a Confederate force has foiled McClellan’s ultimate objective and prevented an attack on Richmond by a larger Union force. Tuesday, July 1, brings the Battle of Malvern Hill, the last of the Seven Days’ battles. From now on, McClellan is in sullen retreat, the Peninsula Campaign a failure.

This Week in the Civil War: June 22-28, 1862

2008-06-27T18:51:00.003-04:00

BACK IN THE SADDLE

On June 3, in Corinth, Mississippi, Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman persuaded his friend and fellow son of Ohio, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, to stay put and be patient. Frustrated by a month as the powerless “second-in-command” to Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, Grant had been packing to leave, probably for good. In his memoirs, Sherman recalled that he “begged” Grant not to leave, arguing “some happy accident might restore him to favor and his true place.”

Within hours, Grant agreed to wait and Sherman rejoiced. Then, a few days later, Sherman’s prediction came true. Halleck decided to break up the huge force he had assembled at Corinth and send its parts in various directions to hold territory won from the Confederates. As part of this, Grant was restored to command of his Army of the Tennessee and told to take charge of west Tennessee. He would make his headquarters in Memphis (Scenes of the important river port of Memphis before the war are shown above).

Grant liked horses, so he skipped taking a train in favor of riding horseback for the 100-mile trip to Memphis. On Saturday, June 21, Grant climbs on his horse and with only a small escort, heads for his new headquarters. Only recently captured by Union forces, Memphis is the first Confederate city to come under Grant’s direct supervision.

In riding to Memphis, Grant’s lack of concern for his own safety approaches recklessness. For the latter part of the trip he has an escort of only 12 men as he rides through territory still crawling with armed Confederate sympathizers. At one point, troops led by CSA Gen. John K. Jackson came within three-quarters of an hour of intercepting Grant’s little party.

Arriving in Memphis on June 23, Grant finds the city in “bad order, secessionists governing much in their own way.” Never daunted, Grant declares, “In a few days I expect to have everything in good order.” A Confederate major on parole who had unwisely been given the run of the streets was arrested, picket guards were posted around Memphis, clergymen were ordered to omit prayers for the Confederacy, and a provost marshal, backed up by three regiments of Indiana troops, are directed to keep order in the city. Grant orders his Union occupiers to behave themselves. Wandering about, pilfering, or straggling are forbidden; soldiers are told to stay in their camps.

He is back in command, but for the next few months, Grant will have to content himself with housekeeping and security duties. To protect west Tennessee, his troops are too dispersed to undertake major offensive actions. To Grant, this is almost as torturous as serving as Halleck’s toothless second-in-command. However, he has the comfort of having his wife, Julia Dent Grant, join him in Memphis.

MEANWHILE…

Col. Rutherford B. Hayes’ 23^rd Ohio is enjoying the summer breezes and not seeing much action, while perched on Flat Top Mountain, a landmark in the southern region of western Virginia. The 3,750-ft mountain stretches for almost 20 miles; the camp of the 23^rd positioned near the boundary between Mercer and Raleigh counties.

Like other elements of Gen. Jacob Cox’s Kanahwa Division in the Union army’s Department of the Mountains, the 23^rd Ohio is keeping western Virginia safe as the region works to separate itself from old Virginia and become a new Union state.

Frequent scouting expeditions help relieve some of the monotony, but there is a lot to find. Occasionally, enemy scouts are encountered, but these are regular soldiers; stern measures by Cox’s men seem to have ended “bushwhacking” by guerrillas in this region.

AND ELSEWHERE IN THE CIVIL WAR:

On Monday (June 23), Robert E. Lee—the newly appointed (and not yet impressive) commander of the Confederate forces in Virginia—meets with his generals. Among Them is Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, who has just finished his brilliant campaign in the Shenandoah Valley to keep Union forces from reinforcing Union Gen. George B. McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign. Now, Lee, Jackson, and company are planning to stop McClellan himself.

The next day, McClellan makes the first move. So close to Richmond that Union soldiers can hear church bells ringing, McClellan sends two divisions across the headwaters of a swamp. Their objective: gain enough ground so Union siege guns can be brought into action and bombard Richmond. The Confederates know that Richmond cannot withstand a siege, so they push back—hard. When darkness halts the bitter fighting, the Yanks have lost much of what they gained early in the day. Their net progress is only 600 yards, achieved at a cost of one casualty for every yard. This, the Battle of Oak Grove, will go down in history as McClellan’s last and only tactical offensive against Richmond.

With that, the so-called Seven Days’ Battles begin, and the initiative passes to Lee. On Thursday (June 26), Lee sends A. P. Hill to drive McClellan out of Mechanicsville, east of Richmond. Hill takes heavy losses without gaining his objective. Nonetheless, the Federals start backpedaling under the pressure. The Battle of Mechanicsville is the beginning of the end for McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign.

The next day, Friday, brings the Battle of Gaines’s Mill, the third of the Seven Days’ battles. Despite yesterday’s shortfall, Lee presses ahead, with more success this time, even while taking more casualties than the Federals. McClellan’s forces continue retreating in what some called a “great skedaddle.”

At the end of the week, McClellan uses a relatively quiet Saturday, June 28, to continue withdrawing, while Lee plans his next move. As usual, McClellan blames others—Lincoln most of all—for his losses. His tone to Lincoln is so bitter and insolent that War Department staffers delete some of his telegram before giving it to the President. McClellan claims he had too few troops (although he hadn’t even used the majority of the men he had on hand). But there were failures on the Confederate side as well. Fresh—or perhaps exhausted—from his brilliant Shenandoah Valley campaign, Jackson keeps showing up late for the battles on the Peninsula.

And so ends the first few days of the Seven Days’ Battles. And so ends yet another Union hope of a quick end to the Civil War.

These Days in the Civil War: June 8-21, 1862

2008-06-22T18:53:00.005-04:00

Back in the Saddle Again

Only a few days ago (June 3), a frustrated Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was packing his belongings, bent on quitting Halleck’s command in Corinth, Mississippi. He had spent a month in limbo, twiddling his thumbs in a meaningless “second-in-command” position under Halleck. "I have stood it as long as I can, and can endure it no longer," he said.

Grant’s suspension from command of his Army of the Tennessee was, in fact, a clumsy compromise. It was punishment for allowing himself to be surprised by the Confederates at Shiloh, without dismissing him from the army. Lincoln had said, “I cannot spare this man; he fights.” Halleck only made things worse by refusing to to frankly explain to Grant why he was being suspended from command.

So Grant asked for leave and got it, but probably did not intend to return to Halleck's command, perhaps using his leave to appeal to higher authority. It was a risky move, but in the nick of time, Grant was talked out of it by another son of Ohio, Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman. Since Shiloh, a friendship had blossomed between Grant and Sherman, when each refused to blame the other for the Confederate surprise attack. When Sherman found Grant packing, he argued Grant’s departure, reasoning that Grant’s fortunes could change in an instant. Grant sat quietly, listened, and within hours decided to stay. On receiving the news, Sherman "rejoiced."

Sherman’s prediction came true sooner than expected. Having captured Corinth, Halleck had to decide what to do next. Probably the best thing he could have done would have been to keep his massed forces together, pursue, and destroy Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard’s forces, which would have crushed the Confederacy in the Western theater and hastened the end of the war. Instead, however, Halleck chose war by the book, the book being the doctrine that war was best waged by taking and holding enemy territory while avoiding battle as much as possible. To do that, Halleck had to give back the Army of the Tennessee to Grant and charge him with holding western Tennessee.

On June 10, Grant was restored to command and soon cheery letters were flowing in Julia Grant’s direction. “It is bright and early,” the happy general wrote her on June 12. “I am very well….This is apparently an exceedingly fine climate and one to enjoy health in”—a misperception if there ever was one. Plagued by terrible water conditions, Corinth, Mississippi, was a pesthole of disease. But Grant was too happy to acknowledge it, full of vim and vigor—and optimism. “In my mind there is no question but that this war could be ended at once if the whole Southern people could express their unbiased feelings untrammeled by their leaders,” he told Julia..

So Grant moved his headquarters to Memphis, arriving there June 23 “tired and dusty.” With only a small escort, he had travelled there by horseback, narrowly escaping capture by Confederate forces roaming the area.

Sherman remained in Mississippi, repairing railroad bridges and salvaging equipment the retreating Confederates had attempted to destroy. The Confederates were not the only enemy Sherman had to deal with: Lt. Gov. Benjamin Stanton of Ohio had visited Union forces after the battle of Shiloh and loudly opined that Grant and another general ought to have been court-martialed and shot for allowing themselves to be surprised.

In an angry letter to Stanton, Sherman wrote, “The accusatory part of your published statement is all false, false in general, false in every particular, and I repeat, you could not have failed to know it false when you published that statement.”

This brought an angry, accusatory reply from Stanton, which he took care to published in a Cincinnati newspaper, followed by another furious response from Sherman.

So went the practice of warfare in the 1860s.

ELSEWHERE IN THE CIVIL WAR: On June 8 and 9, Confederate Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson scored two final victories in the Shenandoah Valley—at Cross Keys and Port Republic and then left to reinforce Lee on the Virginia Peninsula. It was several days before Union forces in the Shenandoah were sure Jackson was gone. Adding to the humiliation of the Federals in the Shenandoah was a humiliation of McClellan on the Peninsula: from June 12 to 15, Confederate cavalry commander J. E. B. Stuart led a thousand-man reconnaissance force on a ride completely around the Army of the Potomac. Stuart made it a raid: destroying considerable property and taking prisoners.

I'll be back soon

2008-06-17T08:36:00.004-04:00

Your Western theater Civil War correspondent, Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com, begs your forgiveness for the absence of posts lately. Needed out of town and away from the camps of the Army of the Ohio and the Army of the Tennessee, he has had to suspend reporting for a little while. However, having just finished a day of lecturing to educators and having survived certain medical matters (the surgeon was most humane, no amputations required), he hopes to return to gathering news about our Western soldiers within a few days.

In the meantime, he humbly suggests trying three (among many) of his favorite works about the Civil War, all in paperback and all first-person narratives of those who were actually there and fought it:

* John Beatty, The Citizen-Soldier: The Memoirs of a Civil War Volunteer. Engagingly written, with clarity and humor, by an unpretentious but sharp-eyed Ohioan who rose from private to general and bitingly told the truth as he saw it.

* John Calvin Hartzell, Ohio Volunteer: Childhood & Civil War Memoirs Capt. John Calvin Hartzell. The first half, a real charmer, is about growing up in rural Ohio, the second half about his frightening adventures in the 105h Ohio and, later, on detached duty. This man had a natural talent for writing; you'll enjoy it.

* William Tecumseh Sherman, Memoirs. Sure, you've read the better-known memoirs of Grant, but Old Cump's are pretty good, too, and you'll find his version of Shiloh and the March to the Sea interesting. If you don't agree with his account of events, Cump already has an answer for you: "Pooh!" (his actual reply to critics of the Memoirs after they were first published).

Finally, your author hopes you will read his own effort: Blood, Tears, and Glory: How Ohioans Won the Civil War and email him with your questions, complaints, suggestions, or whatever. (Please note, however: unlike the other other writers suggested, I was not present during the war.)

This Week in the Civil War: June 1-7, 1862

2008-05-31T13:04:00.005-04:00

Critical Moments

Writers and tour guides all have their favorite “turning points” in the Civil War, so there are lots to choose from. But the “turning points” claimed are so portentous and deterministic that they demand almost impossible levels of proof. Less pretentious—and more realistic—are “critical moments,” events so clearly important that some effects can be reasonably inferred, without claiming they point to the war’s outcome.

There are far more critical moments in the Civil War than "turning points."

Two critical moments occur in the Western Theater after Halleck’s takeover on Friday, May 30, of the abandoned Confederate rail center of Corinth, Mississippi. With his massive force—100,000 or so soldiers, assembled from three separate Union armies—Halleck outweighs anything the Confederates could quickly assemble in the Western Theater. Forging ahead to deliver one great hammer blow to Beauregard’s ragged Rebels might crush Confederate hopes here once and for all. But on June 11 Halleck will give up his pursuit of Beauregard. The war will drag on. A critical moment lost.

However, in the first days of June an even more important moment occurs here, one that will prove to favor the Union side. It happens like this.

On Wednesday, June 3, William Tecumseh Sherman drops into Halleck’s headquarters to chew the fat and swap gossip, as soldiers of all ranks do. Halleck casually lets drop that Ulysses S. Grant— having asked for, and received, a 30-day leave—is leaving the very next day. Halleck claims to not know the reason why, which would make him the only senior officer not to know how Grant, as Sherman put it, “was chafing under the slights of his anomalous position.” It is hard to believe that "Old Brains" is that obtuse It is more likely he is jealous and distrustful of Grant and only too glad to see him go.

A startled Sherman hurries to Grant’s camp, still in the piney woods outside Corinth. He finds office and camp chests piled up in front of the general's camp, ready for a departure, with Grant inside his tent, tidying up his desk. Sherman asks why he is leaving.

“Sherman, you know,” Grant replies. “You know that I am in the way here. I have stood it as long as I can, and can endure it no longer.” He adds that he is going to St. Louis and, when asked if he had any business there, replies, “Not a bit.”

But Sherman, depressed and unsure of himself for so long, has been transformed by his success in command at Shiloh and has confidence to spare. He begs Grant to stay. “That single battle had given me a new life,” Sherman will recall in his memoirs, “and now I was in high feather; and I argued with him that, if he…remained, some happy accident might restore him to favor and his true place.”

Thankful for Sherman’s concern as well as the friendly advice, Grant promises to think things over. It doesn’t take him long. Later the same evening he writes Julia that he will not be leaving camp after all. “Necessity…changes my plans, or the public service does, and I must yield.”

The next day, Thursday, Sherman travels 14 miles northwest to Chewalla, Missisippi, to reconnoiter and try to salvage of some trains wrecked there and burned by the Confederates. On Friday, June 6, he receives a note from Grant saying that “he had reconsidered his intention, and would be remain.” Sherman quickly writes a reply: “I…am rejoiced at your conclusion to remain,” telling Grant that “you could not be quiet at home for a week when armies were moving.”

By coincidence, one of the great military confrontations in history is foreordained by events this week. Hundreds of miles to the east, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s Union soldiers and Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s Confederates are fighting to a draw at Seven Pines (or Fair Oaks) in Virginia. Johnston is seriously wounded on the first day of the battle and is immediately replaced by a man named Robert E. Lee. So far in the war, Lee has shown little promise of success on the battlefield. Grant has shown more, but at the moment he is at one of the nadirs of his career.

But in two years, thanks to critical moments occurring within days of each other in Virginia and Mississippi, Grant and Lee will become the two most prominent commanders of the Civil War. They will fight some of its last battles and help to bring it to a close. But not before many other critical moments have passed.

IT’S COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK: April 12, 2011—less than 3 years from now!—will be the 150^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861, April 12 was the day Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

Your suggestions, comments, and questions about this blog are always welcome. Address the author: Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com

For more information about the author and his newest book, please go to http://www.orangefrazer.com/btg

THIS WEEK IN THE CIVIL WAR: May 25-31, 1862

2008-05-25T14:03:00.001-04:00

Who does fortune favor?

He didn’t want to do it—fight on a Sunday, that is—but nonetheless on Sunday, May 25 the very religious Maj. Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson attacks Union Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Banks’ harried Federals at Winchester, in the Shenandoah Valley. Jackson was forever invoking God’s mercy as he rode into battle and, before this day was over, he must have concluded he had been graced with it this time. Outnumbering the Union soldiers 2 to 1, Jackson’s Confederates deliver a smashing blow, killing, wounding, or capturing a fourth of the 8,019 bluecoats and capturing a rich trove of supplies. But as Banks’ men retreat through the streets of Winchester and flee towards Harpers Ferry, two other Union armies—one under Frémont, coming from the west, the other under McDowell, coming from the east—are hoping to cut off Jackson.

By Thursday, May 29, Jackson is near Harpers Ferry, where Bank’s 5,000 men wait. Behind Jackson, however, are John Charles Frémont’s 15,000 men and Irvin McDowell’s 20,000. Is Jackson trapped? Not likely. Once again demonstrating the quickness that is making him famous. Jackson slips away. In pouring rain on Saturday, May 31, he escapes the looming entrapment, slipping southward between Irvin McDowell and Frémont before the Federal forces could converge.

“First Winchester” (as the battle is known because of later engagements in the same place), is a major strategic victory for the Confederates. It forced the Union to divert McDowell from reinforcing McClellan on the Virginia Peninsula, and keep him positioned so he could defend Washington if Jackson turned in that direction.

In his Peninsula Campaign, on Saturday, May 31, McClellan finally gets into a battle, without asking for it. He splits his force, putting three of his five corps north of the Chickahominy River—supposedly to unite with McDowell. Needed to defend Washington, McDowell, of course, is going to do no such thing. Confederate commander Joseph E. Johnston thinks he sees his chance to attack a weakened McClellan, so he attacks the two Union army remaining on the south side of the river. This is the battle known as Seven Pines or Fair Oaks. After some initial success, the Confederate attack fails and, worst of all, Johnston is seriously wounded and must leave his command.

To replace Johnston, CSA President Jefferson Davis dispatches his own military adviser, a relatively unknown Virginia gentleman named Robert E. Lee—and the rest is history…at least in the Eastern Theater.

In the Western Theater, meanwhile, events have been moving towards a conclusion of Halleck’s glacial advance on Corinth, Mississippi. On Sunday, May 25, Halleck’s combined force is within two miles of Corinth’s defenses, close enough to begin pounding the Confederate base into submission by artillery fire. Halleck starts moving his big guns into position, while deadly skirmishing continues in the no man’s land between the Union and Confederate

Confederate commander P.G.T. Beauregard knows the jig is up and he must save his army. Thanks to poor water and unhealthy living conditions, many of his men are sick and his defenses are weak. Throughout Thursday night, May 29-30, trains rush in and out of Corinth, carrying away the Confederates to Tupelo, about 50 miles south.

As each train arrives, the Confederates cheer, leading some on the Union side to think Corinth is being reinforced. But then, deep, rumbling explosions are heard. The Confederates are blowing up their ammunition dumps. (Pictured above) On Saturday morning, May 30, Union soldiers cautiously enter Corinth and find it deserted. Halleck’s advance has ended successfully—for Halleck—but much of the glory has been lost because of the slowness of his advance.

What Halleck does next, however, will be far worse. In the days to come, he will throw away one of the war’s greatest opportunities. Stonewall Jackson already as shown how fortune favors the bold. Halleck will demonstrate how little caution can favor the Union.

THESE WEEKS IN THE CIVIL WAR: May 11-17 AND May 18-24, 1862

2008-05-15T20:04:00.005-04:00

The author of THIS WEEK IN THE CIVIL WAR will be out of town, travelling (in the Northern states, of course), so “This Week” will cover TWO weeks. Since this edition describes Halleck’s ponderous advance on Corinth, it is suggested you get in the spirit of things by reading this v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y.

GRANT ADRIFT

For the first few days of the Union advance on Corinth, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant watched silently as Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck’s orders to the Army of the Tennessee and the reserve corps—both nominally Grant’s commands—whizzed by him as if he didn’t exist. Told after the Union victory at Shiloh that he was now Halleck’s second-in-command, Grant must not have realized it meant this.

But it did. Grant—the Union army’s most successful commander—has been shelved in plain sight. He no longer has command authority over the forces he had been leading up until now. His new role is almost meaningless. By Sunday, May 11, he can stand it no longer. He writes Halleck politely but firmly: “[M]y position differs but little from that of one in arrest. I deem it due to myself to ask either full restoration to duty, according to my rank, to be relieved entirely from further duty.”

On the same day he writes Julia: “I am thinking seriously of going home, and to Washington, as soon as the present impending fight or footrace is settled. I have been so shockingly abused that I sometimes think it is almost time to defend myself.”

Julia’s response is unknown, but Halleck fires back a reply that is mostly malarkey. He insists Grant’s powerless second-in-command role is the right one for him (which it isn’t) and that he, Halleck, had spent the past three months defending Grant (only if you don’t count Halleck’s own effort to undermine Grant following Fort Donelson). Halleck cannot bring himself to frankly explain to Grant that he is being punished for the Confederate surprise at Shiloh. A public outcry had demanded that something be done about that close call, but President Lincoln had declared, "I can't spare this man; he fights.” Hence, the de facto suspension, unaccompanied by candor on Halleck’s part.

Of course, Halleck's reply does not satisfy Grant. Over the next few weeks he keeps repeating his request to be relieved from duty. Repeatedly, he will be refused. Meanwhile, Halleck’s combined command—a total of 100,000 men from Pope’s Army of the Mississippi, Buell’s Army of the Ohio, and Grant’s Army of the Tennessee—will slow down in its advance on the Beauregard’s Confederates at Corinth, Mississippi.

When Norfolk, Virginia, falls to McClellan’s Army of the Potomac, President Lincoln wires the happy news to Halleck, adding, “Be very sure to sustain no reverses in your Department.” He needn’t have worried. After a quick start, Halleck’s cautious nature takes command of the advance on Corinth. Now, this huge force only inches forward, a sluggish giant that seems to be burrowing its way to Corinth, throwing up earthworks every time it stops. On average, this Union army advances only a mile a day—and sometimes less.

Years later, a veteran of the 68^th Ohio will remember how working parties of soldiers would labor mightily to build vast earthworks and bastions, inwhich the army would pause only for a day or two, and then advance a short distance--sometimes only half a mile--to repeat the process all over again. Part of the time, heavy rains fell on the troops, turning the ground to mud and forcing soldiers to help mules drag the army’s wagons forward. Soaking wet, the soldiers slogged through mud, pausing here and there to pour the water out of their boots (pictured above). Now and again, there would be skirmishes and sharp little engagements—but no head-on confrontation with Beauregard’s main force of Confederates.

The division led by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman—emboldened by his success at Shiloh—gets so far in advance of the rest of Halleck’s forces that it comes within a mile and a half of Corinth. There it settles to watch and wait, while Halleck creeps in its direction. Realizing he faces overwhelming force (thanks to dirty water and malarial conditions, much of his army is sick and out of action), Beauregard begins evacuating his troops by train. When the empty trains return, his soldiers are ordered to cheer loudly. The train traffic and the noise suggest that Beauregard is being reinforced. That suggestion, combined with Halleck’s natural caution and the memory of two days of hard fighting with the Confederates at Shiloh, is more than enough to delay occupation of Corinth until May 30.

With little to do, Grant wanders about the various Union camps, visiting one general and another, among them, Sherman, who had served him well at Shiloh. Years later, Sherman would recall that Grant rarely complained, “but I could see that he felt deeply the indignity, if not insult, heaped upon him.” It showed when Grant snapped at his beloved Julia in a letter about their personal finances.

But a trusting friendship is developing between Grant and Sherman. After Shiloh, they each owed something to the other. Grant never publicly blamed Sherman for not alerting him to the danger looming before the battle. For his part, Sherman rushed to publicly defend Grant when the press began attacking him for a lack of preparedness. And neither man ever admitted they had been surprised at Shiloh—although they clearly had been. Born of convenience, the close relationship blossomed—according to history writer Charles Bracelen Flood—into “the friendship that won the Civil War.”*

*Grant and Sherman: The Friendship that Won the Civil War (New York, 2005: Farrar, Straus and Giroux).

ELSEWHERE, MAY 11-24, 1862: With no refuge left for its famous ironclad, the Confederates are forced to scuttle the CSS Virginia (known to Northerners as the Merrimack). Having recaptured New Orleans for the Union, Farragut’s flotilla moves up the Mississippi in what will turn out to be a futile effort to reclaim the river from the Confederates. In New Orleans, the occupying Union general, Benjamin Butler, issues his infamous Order No. 28, declaring that ladies in the city who insult Union troops will be treated like prostitutes. On the Virginia peninsula, Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston keeps falling back under pressure from McClellan. President Jefferson Davis is increasingly worried about the impending threat to Richmond. In the Shenandoah Valley, however, Stonewall Jackson’s “foot cavalry” is moving aggressively in search of the Federals, and on Friday, May 23, Jackson captures Front Royal, after a sharp little battle. Meanwhile, the work of a growing nation goes on, as President Lincoln approves establishment of the Department of Agriculture on Thursday, May 15, and on Tuesday, May 20, signs the Homestead Act, granting free land to settlers in the West.

THIS WEEK IN THE CIVIL WAR: May 4-10, 1862

2008-05-09T09:10:00.003-04:00

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Effective April 25, “Blood, Tears, and Glory—The American Civil War, Day by Historical Day, changed to a weekly format, presenting a summary of that week’s events in the war. While the emphasis will continue to be on the Western Theater, all major events in the war will be recognized.

Is the Confederacy doomed?

The bad news for the Confederacy keeps getting worse. Threats press in from every side. In the Western Theater, over 100,000 Union soldiers under Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck are heading for Corinth, Mississippi, intent on capturing that vital rail junction. In the Eastern Theater, another 100,000 Federals, led by Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, is on the Virginia Peninsula, with the Confederate capital of Richmond its objective.

After a month of standing still while planning a siege, McClellan’s Army of the Potomac finally enters Yorktown, Virginia, on Sunday, May 4. Just as McClellan was moving big siege guns in place in front of Yorktown, Confederate Maj. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston and his smaller army slipped away, leaving the door open. McClellan calls his near bloodless siege “brilliant,” but Johnston’s army remains intact, simply moving westward, towards Richmond and, briefly, out of McClellan’s range. On Tuesday, after a small, sharp fight, advance units of the Union army enter nearby Williamsburg as well—but Johnston keeps falling back.

On Thursday, the Confederate government gets a little good news when Stonewall Jackson scores the first victory of his Shenandoah Valley campaign. In the battle of McDowell (or Bull Pasture Mountain) Jackson’s 10,000 Confederates push back 6,000 Federals under Brig. Gen. Robert Schenck, an Ohio “political general.” Now Jackson will start moving north to gain more successes in the Valley. His objective is to tie up Union troops who might otherwise bolster McClellan’s Army of the Potomac on the Virginia Peninsula. Already, Jackson is developing a reputation for moving fast and hitting hard. Soon the name of “Jackson” will be feared in the North.

But there is more bad news for the Rebellion’s government. On Friday, feeling the pressure of McClellan’s 100,000-man invasion force nearby, the Confederates abandon their important naval and army base at Norfolk, Virginia. It is a severe loss. Although the retreating Confederates try to burn as much as they can (the abandoned, burning Norfolk is pictured above), considerable booty falls into the hands of the Federals, who enter Norfolk unopposed on Saturday. While visiting the Peninsula, President Lincoln watches Union troops moving into Norfolk and Portsmouth, Virginia.

So things are looking up for the Union, but all is not well. McClellan’s army will slow down again, and so will Halleck’s. Historians will look back at all this, not so much as a time of Union success, but of lost opportunities.

THIS WEEK IN THE CIVIL WAR: April 27-May 3, 1862

2008-05-02T09:44:00.001-04:00

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Effective April 25, “Blood, Tears, and Glory—The American Civil War, Day by Historical Day, changes to a weekly format, presenting a summary of that week’s events in the war. While the emphasis will continue to be on the Western Theater, all major events in the war will be recognized.

Lake Erie’s Rebels

Since January and Zollicoffer’s humiliating defeat in southern Kentucky at Logan Cross Roads (Mill Springs), every month has brought more bad news for the Confederacy. There have been crushing losses at Forts Henry and Donelson, Pittsburg Landing (“Shiloh”), and Island No. 10. Now there are looming threats by Federal armies on the Virginia Peninsula, in the Shenandoah Valley, and on the approach to Corinth, Mississippi. And, as if to dramatize the Union’s skyrocketing ascendancy, Federal authorities have just opened a big prison camp in Ohio primarily for Rebel officers and it is filling rapidly.

The camp is on Johnson’s Island, in Sandusky Bay on Ohio’s Lake Erie coastline. The island contains about 300 acres, partly wooded, and is about 2 and ¾ miles from the small city of Sandusky, which is 66 miles west of Cleveland. Construction of the camp began in November 1861 and the first trainload of 200 Confederate prisoners arrived in Sandusky on April 11, 1862, via a special train. The Sandusky Register described them as a varied lot, many of them short and thin, wearing a mixture of clothing of various styles and colors, and displaying attitudes that ranged from swagger to sullenness.

When it opened, the prison consisted of 17 buildings. It occupied a compound of 14 or 15 acres surrounded on three sides by a plank fence and on the fourth by a high picket fence. Sentinels occupied two block houses, one at the main gate and the other at a far corner of the fence. The first barracks for prisoners were one-story framed wooden buildings covered with shingles, divided into rooms of various sizes, heated with stoves. Wood for construction and, later, for firewood, was found on the island itself. Storehouses, a hospital, kitchens, and mess facilities were also built inside the stockade, with a garrison house for the guards outside the fence.

At first, prison life on Johnson’s Island was as pleasant as a prison could be. One of the first prisoners wrote to a Memphis newspaper how pleased he was with what he found ;

Altogether, Sandusky is the least disagreeable prison I saw or ever heard from. The officers in command are civil and courteous—the lake breeze robs the summer sun of his heat, the view of the city, lake and neighboring islands is fine, the restrictions on prisoners are few, and altogether it is a salubrious, pleasant place.

A typical day for prisoners began with breakfast at 6 a.m., with roll call at 7:30 conducted at each barracks by a member of the guard. Dinner was at noon and supper shortly before sundown. A band composed of guards played several selections at 9 p.m. and at 9:30 taps were sounded and all lights put out.

At first, food and creature comforts were plentiful. Ice and milk were distributed after breakfast, sutlers entered the compound to sell fruits, vegetables, and newspapers for sale, and mail came at mid-morning. A general store sold items at fixed prices. Rations, firewood, and clothing were also distributed in the morning. Prisoners were free in the afternoon to play games, sleep, walk, or make trinkets. In warm weather, prisoners—under guard—were allowed to bathe in the lake, and the Sabbath was observed as a quiet time, with religious services.

However, as reports reached the North of hardship endured by Union prisoners in Confederate hands, rations and privileges were periodically reduced in retaliation. Other problems, including hygiene, arose as the war went on, but hardship at Camp Chase never approached that suffered at Andersonville prison in the Confederacy.

By the end of the war, the Johnson’s Island prison had grown to 100 buildings housing as many as 2,600 male prisoners—and, in disguise, at least one women. Federal authorities were surprised when one of their prisoners gave birth to “a bouncing baby boy.” For the most part, however, life at the Johnson’s Island prison camp proceeded quietly until the end of the war—with one exception. In September 1864 the prison was the object of a Confederate operation known today as “The Lake Erie Conspiracy.” But that is a story for a later date.

ELSEWHERE IN THE CIVIL WAR: Sunday, April 27, was Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s 40^th birthday, a day of which he made no special note but spent instead with routine duties arising from his Army of the Tennessee, encamped at Pittsburg Landing.

After two weeks of hurriedly trying to make the “undisciplined and very much disorganized” Union forces assembled at Pittsburg Landing look and act a little more like an army should, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck finally gave the order to start moving on P.G.T. Beauregard’s 67,000 Confederates dug in nearby at Corinth, Mississippi. Halleck’s advance units moved out on Monday, with the rest following on Tuesday. Over 100,000 men were involved, operating as three big corps. Maj. Gen. John Pope’s Army of the Mississippi formed the left wing of the advance, Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio the center, and Grant’s Army of the Tennessee the right wing. Grant writes Julia today, “Before this reaches you, probably another battle, and I think the last big one [in the Mississippi Valley] will have taken place.” Grant has no doubt of Union success in the battle and adds that he looks upon “our Chief, Halleck…as one of the greatest men of the age.”

“But “one of the greatest men of the age” has a surprise for Grant. On Wednesday, April 30, Halleck issued Special Orders No. 35, removing Grant from direct command of his Army of the Tennessee and giving him the meaningless position of “second-in-command” under Halleck. To add insult to injury, Halleck moved his headquarters to what had been Grant’s right wing and told Grant to stay nearby. This time-out from command was a bureaucratic sleight of hand intended to punish Grant for being caught off-guard at Shiloh without losing him to the service. Lincoln had, after all, taken a firm position on that: “I can’t spare this man; he fights.”

On Saturday, May 3, an unusually ebullient Halleck wired Secretary of war Edwin M, Stanton that “our army will be before Corinth to-morrow night.” Halleck’s three armies will, in fact, make steady progress for a few days. But then Old Brains’ natural caution will kick in, and the advance will slow to a crawl as Halleck worries about being caught off-guard and orders his men to entrench themselves every step of the way. Reduced to glacial speed, Halleck’s huge army will not occupy Corinth until the end of the month.

Meanwhile, on the Virginia Peninsula, another hyper-cautious Union commander, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, brings up siege guns and prepare to bombard Yorktown.. Before any serious damage can be done, however, the outnumbered. Confederates, under Maj. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, evacuate Yorktown on Saturday, May 3. That renders the siege guns useless and McClellan’s long-delayed advance of the Army of the Potomac a waste of time.

In the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, Stonewall Jackson changes direction and heads for the Federals near Staunton. Within days, Jackson’s brilliant “Valley Campaign” will be underway, going down in the history books as a military exercise still worth studying a century and a half later.

THIS WEEK IN THE CIVIL WAR: April 20-26, 1862

2008-04-25T10:38:00.002-04:00

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Effective April 25, “Blood, Tears, and Glory—The American Civil War, Day by Historical Day," changes to a weekly format, presenting a summary of that week’s events in the war. While the emphasis will continue to be on the Western Theater, all major events in the war will be recognized.

New Orleans Falls!

With warming weather, troops on both sides come alive, with skirmishes breaking out like brushfires across the nation. The Confederacy has seen little but failure since the beginning of the year, and it looks as if the worst is yet to come. McClellan has a huge force on the Virginia Peninsula, his objective the Confederate capital of Richmond. Another huge force, under Halleck, is hunkered down in southwestern Tennessee with the crucial Confederate rail center of Corinth, Mississippi, as its objective. Smaller forces are moving in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where the Federals have pretty much had their own way. And in the Mississippi estuary a fleet of Union warships is about to start moving against the Confederacy’s busiest port: New Orleans.

On Sunday, April 20, a daring party of Federals uses explosives to weaken the Confederate barricade of chains and old hulks that block the Mississippi River and access to New Orleans.

On Monday, the Confederate Congress agrees on exemptions to the sweeping conscription bill it passed last week requiring three years’ military service from all white males ages 18 to35.

On Wednesday, April 23, Capt. David G. Farragut ponders the failure of his 19 mortar boats to destroy two Confederate masonry forts (Forts Jackson and St. Philip) guarding the passage upriver to New Orleans. The mortars had rained hundreds of shells on the forts, to no avail. Swamps in the area prevent a land attack on the city as well. Farragut decides on a daring dash of his wooden warships between the defiant forts, which are on opposite shores of the Mississippi.

The fleet gets underway the next morning, Thursday, at 3 a.m. Farragut’s first eight ships creep by undetected. Then the moon rises and the next nine ships, including Farragut’s own, suddenly come under heavy fire from the forts. A bedlam of noise and smoke ensues in the darkness, with the desperate Confederate even launching fire rafts against Farragut’s fleet. However, only three of Farragut’s smaller vessels are disabled. (Farragut's "dash" is pictured above.)

Next, Farragut’s warships encounter a small Confederate defense fleet, including the ram CSS Manassas. The ram and other vessels, though fighting bravely, fail to stop Farragut and the Rebel fleet is demolished, while the Union navy loses only one vessel. The Confederates lose eight. Farragut keeps moving and on Friday anchors outside the city of New Orleans. Braving jeers and threats from city residents, a party of Union naval officers comes ashore to begin surrender talks with the city’s mayor and the commander of Confederate forces in the area.

The city’s mayor claims not to have the authority to surrender the city. Confederate Maj. Gen. Mansfield Lovell, commander of Confederate forces, chooses to withdraw rather than surrender.

The way is clear for Union troops, under Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, to march into the city unopposed. New Orleans was the Confederacy’s second largest city and its busiest port, the gateway to the Mississippi and the nation’s heartland. Its loss is a tremendous psychological blow to the Confederacy. It makes Farragut a Union hero, and is one of the most decisive victories of the war.

ELSEWHERE:

Maj. Gen. Charles F. Smith, sidelined by a seemingly minor scrape on his leg, dies on Friday, April 25, at Savannah, Tennessee. The Union loses a brave soldier and Grant a friendly mentor. At Pittsburg Landing (“Shiloh“) on Saturday, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant writes Smith’s widow in New York City, saying, “In his death the nation has lost one of its most gallant and most able defenders.”

Also at Pittsburg Landing, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck is getting ready to launch an attack—the first important military action “Old Brains” has ever led in person. His target is the Confederate base at Corinth, Mississippi, 22 miles southwest of the Union encampment. To reinforce Halleck—a man who hates to take chances— Brig. Gen. John Pope’s Army of the Mississippi has arrived to join Brig. Gen. Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio and Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s Army of the Tennessee. Halleck spends the week issuing orders to shape up the volunteer forces, which he considers undisciplined.

On Saturday, April 26, Union Brig Gen. John G. Parke accepts the surrender of a small body of Confederates holding Fort Macon, a pentagon-shaped structure of brick and stone built on one of the barrier islands along coastal North Carolina. The old fort, a Federal facility built before the war but seized by Rebels in 1861, has been under Union artillery fire from gunboats and land batteries for nearly a month. It’s all part of Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside’s invasion of eastern North Carolina.

In the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, Union Generals Nathaniel P. Banks and John C. Frémont have 15,000 troops each with which to deal with Stonewall Jackson’s 14,000 men. As the month ends, the Federals are threatening Staunton, held by the Confederates. So far, here in the Valley the tide has been running in the Union’s favor.

On the Virginia Peninsula, Maj. George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac has halted in front of Yorktown and McClellan is preparing a siege.

Things do not look good for the Confederacy, and President Jefferson Davis is taking increasing criticism for his conduct of the war. But a little known commander named Robert E. Lee is serving as military adviser to Davis and soon will emerge into prominence.

IT’S COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK: April 12, 2011—scarcely 3 years from now!—will be the 150^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861, April 12 was the day Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

ON THIS DAY: Tuesday, April 22, 1862

2008-04-22T16:33:00.002-04:00

“The Leading Thought”

For many in the Union armies, the battle at Shiloh was their first big test at arms. Three of Grant’s five divisions were “entirely raw,” in Grant’s words; many had only just received their weapons and hardly knew how to load them. Probably most had wondered to themselves how they would perform when they “saw the elephant.”

A significant number—though a minority of Grant’s troops—had panicked and run away, taking shelter under a bluff at Pittsburg Landing. Of the 41,500 men present for duty at Shiloh on the first morning, estimates of those who fled range from 4,000 to 5,000 (In Grant’s opinion) to 15,000 (Buell’s).

Reactions to the first experience of combat varied. Although some men on both sides fled the field, the majority of soldiers remained in the fight, despite their fears. And then there were those who were energized by fighting, who came alive in the eyes of their peers and forgot whatever apprehensions they may have had. As the war went on, the men around Ulysses S. Grant would discover he was one of these. Sherman seemed to be another.

At Shiloh, Sherman remained in the thick of the fighting at risk of his life, galloping back and forth to rally his men. Grant said he found it unnecessary to stay long with Sherman during the battle, explaining, “Although his troops were…under fire for the first time, their commander, by his constant presence with them, inspired a confidence in officers and men that enabled them to render service on that bloody battlefield worthy of the best of veterans.” This was the same man who had seemed so spooked by the mere possibility of Confederates bearing down on him in Kentucky.

As the armies settled down after the battle and men had time to think and write, Capt. Emerson Opdycke, executive officer of the 41^st Ohio, wrote his wife to tell her “how I felt during such an awful contest.”

Underlining certain words for emphasis, Opdycke told Lucy that “I was conscious of the danger all the time, but felt that as an officer, I was there to perform certain duties, so that in my mind, all the danger sank into comparative insignificance.

“I thought of patriotism, of victory, of personal honor and pride, and of a glorious death of the battlefield, but the leading thought was to thrash the rebels soundly! I could not help smiling to myself occasionally when I saw cowardly officers or men, but they were very few in the brave 41^st.”

ON THIS DAY: Monday, April 21, 1862

2008-04-22T11:00:00.003-04:00

“Where’s Our Pay?”

Civil War armies spend more time wrestling with bureaucracy and struggling with paperwork than they spend in battle. The innocent victims of all this are the army’s own soldiers, and especially their families. Few soldiers were wealthy enough to leave their families well provided for.

Even top commanders like Grant and Sherman have to regularly fuss with arrangements to send money home. Families of the ordinary farmers, craftsmen, and shop workers who make up the army’s rank and file are never far from destitution even in the best of times. It imposes an almost unbearable hardship when soldiers cannot regularly send home their meager pay ($13 a month for ordinary privates).

Failure to pay soldiers on time is a common occurrence. The cause is an old-fashioned bureaucratic system that breaks down under the strain of war. Today, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant attempts a strategy to relieve the problem for the 58^th Illinois Volunteer Infantry. Most members of the regiment, except for 150 men and one or two company-grade officers, were captured in the recent battle at Pittsburg Landing (“Shiloh”).

The remnants of the 58^th Illinois have been left without the paperwork (“descriptive rolls” and “discharge papers”) needed to authorize soldiers’ pay. All the regimental officers, who could furnish such paperwork, have been taken prisoner. At the request of one of his division commanders, therefore, Grant approves consolidating the remnants of the 58^th Illinois with the 18^th Illinois as a way of achieving the regimental structure needed to deal with the problem.

Some of the men of the 58^th Illinois have not been paid for four or five months, and sick and wounded survivors are making “urgent appeals.”

ELSEWHERE IN THE CIVIL WAR: Last week, the Confederate Congress approved (and President Jefferson Davis signed) a bill ordering into military service all white males ages 18 to 35. Today, the Congress approved badly needed exemptions to the overly broad conscription act. Among those who will not be drafted are government officials (of course!), telegraph operators, educators, druggists, hospital workers, and workers in certain essential industries. Having tidied up the conscription act, Congress adjourns.

The Confederate military situation worries President Jefferson Davis, although no major military action occurs today. Nevertheless, Union generals McClellan and McDowell are leading armies in the direction of Richmond, Union naval mortars are pounding the defenses of New Orleans, and Burnside has established himself in eastern North Carolina. Things do not look good for the Confederacy.

President Lincoln informs General McClellan, now on the Virginia Peninsula, that Fredericksburg, Virginia, has been evacuated by the enemy and General McDowell is positioning himself near the riverbank across from the town.

ON THIS DAY: Sunday, April 20, 1862

2008-04-21T10:30:00.000-04:00

Life in Camp

While tens of thousands of Union soldiers at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, glumly adapt to the heavy hand of their new commander, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, a few thousand others are cheerfully making the best of things in the mountains of western Virginia.

They are the men of Scammon’s brigade (the 12^th, 23^rd, 30^th Ohio Infantry, plus the 1^st Ohio Independent Battery) in the Union’s Mountain Department (western Virginia). They have a spent a long, dreary winter doing not much in the snowbound valleys of what is now West Virginia. With the promise of spring, however, they are on the move at last, tramping eastward, then southerly, bound—the men hope—for glory where a real war was going on.

A cold, pounding rain halts the march, however, and tents must be erected. Nonetheless, the men are so happy about the promise of action that they sing and laugh, according to Lt. Col. Rutherford Hayes, who is effectively the commander of the 23^rd. The men “keep mirthful,” he says. One of the regiment’s surgeons plays poker and loses a knife and 50 cents. Hayes wanders around, listening to storytelling and cracking jokes.

The temperature drops, the wind gusts, and mud surrounds the camp. “But we are jolly enough,” Hayes writes Lucy. “Like sailors in a storm, the men seem stimulated to unnatural mirth by gloomy circumstances.” The soldiers even sing, playing their fiddles and banjos. The band “play their liveliest airs, and so we manage to get on.”

While writing Lucy, Hayes is alone is his tent, using a book as writing desk. He is surrounded by belongings: saddle, rubber ground cloth, an old hat, haversack, saddlebags. Behind him is his cot heaped with his clothing; in the center of the tent is a sheet-iron stove, unlit. The rain rattles against the tent wall, a damp cold settles on everyone, and only the promise of eventual sunshine and warfare lightens the mood.

ON THIS DAY: Thursday, April 17, 1862

2008-04-18T09:21:00.001-04:00

Shaping Up the Volunteers

Having taken personal charge of the troops gathering at Pittsburg Landing, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, commander of the Union’s Department of the West, has his hands full whipping thousands of free-spirited volunteers into shape. He is trying to impose Old Army rules on New Army men.

Today, a long, complicated directive from Halleck goes out to Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell, commanders of the Army of the Tennessee and the Army of the Ohio respectively. Halleck tells them to establish a system of drills and inspections immediately. All defective arms are to be collected. All troops are to be arranged in line of battle. Cavalry guards will keep men from wandering down to the boat landing. Bridges are to be built and roads repaired

Working parties that fail to do their duty will be arrested and punished. All stragglers will be arrested and confined. Bars on the boats will be shut down and no more liquors sold. Boards will be established to examine the “character and capacity” of volunteer officers. These orders are to be read out loud to all soldiers, and they are to be told, “Every regiment and corps should take pride in preparing itself, with the least possible delay, to again meet the enemy in battle….”

No doubt the volunteer armies, composed mostly of citizen-soldiers just off the farm, can benefit. But these are soldiers willing to fight for their country, under leaders they respect for their courage and concern for their own men. They will only reluctantly follow martinets who live by the rulebook. Halleck is demanding too much at once.

ELSEWHERE IN THE CIVIL WAR: As if Confederate authorities didn’t already have enough to worry about, Federal soldiers are gathering on Ships Island, not far from New Orleans. Flag Officer David F. Farragut has organized a large fleet of Union warships nearby as well. David Dixon Porter is present with a fleet of mortar boats, and Gen. Benjamin Butler has transports loaded with troops. To defend the Crescent City, the Confederates have two forts manned by a small number of militiamen, an improvised barricade of chain and hulks, and a small river fleet. New Orleans is the gateway to the Mississippi and of great importance commercially and militarily.

ON THIS DAY: Wednesday, April 16, 1862

2008-04-16T17:39:00.001-04:00

“Old Brains” Takes Charge

Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck—“Old Brains”—arrived at Pittsburg Landing (“Shiloh”) last Friday to take personal command of all forces there. Yesterday, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant wrote Julia that although Halleck is “in command of the whole, Buell & myself [are] commanding our separate armies” (the Army of the Tennessee and the Army of the Ohio, respectively). Wrong.

In fact, Halleck and President Lincoln are working out a plan to punish Grant for his lack of preparedness at Shiloh by relegating him to a meaningless, powerless position as Halleck’s “second-in-command.” For how long is unknown. When Halleck begins his ponderous advance on Corinth, Mississippi, within a few days, Grant will discover Halleck’s orders to Grant’s army are bypassing him, leaving him with little to do.

Until the Federal force begins its advance, however, Halleck keeps busy trying to shape up the troops at Pittsburg Landing. He writes his wife that “this army is undisciplined and very much disorganized, the officers being incapable of maintaining order.” Halleck (who has never commanded anything larger than a platoon before) is bringing a regular army mentality to the reality of volunteer soldiers, who require a different kind of leadership.

In a clumsy attempt to win their respect, he occupies an ordinary soldier’s tent instead of something more comfortable. Then a barrage of directives flow out from the tent, ordering more drilling and less carousing. In a few days, however, this army will begin moving once again and the soldiers will experience a new kind of frustration under Halleck’s leadership.

Although Brig. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s right hand is “temporarily disabled” by inflammation caused by a buckshot wound during the battle of Shiloh, he is anxious to spread the word about how he has redeemed himself. Despite his sore hand, he manages to get off a short letter his brother, Sen. John Sherman, in Washington.

After weeks of suffering shame for his emotional collapse under pressure in Kentucky, Cump wants his brother to know how well he performed during the battle of Shiloh. He includes a copy made of the laudatory letter, recommending promotion, that Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck wrote about him, saying he “contributed largely to the glorious victory of the 7^th”.

Sherman brims with new-found confidence. He admits his division of the Army of the Tennessee is made up largely of new troops, some of whom performed badly during the battle of Shiloh, “but I hope by patience to make it as good as any other division of the army.” He concludes, “I believe our hardest fighting is yet to be done, but I have absolute faith in Gels. Halleck, Buell, and Grant.”

ELSEWHERE IN THE CIVIL WAR: President Lincoln signs an act releasing all slaves in the District of Columbia, in return for compensation to owners of sums not to exceed $300. In McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign is stalled in front of Yorktown, Virginia, as the cautious commander of the Army of the Potomac awaits reinforcements and siege guns. In northern Alabama, Ormsby Mitchel’s division of Buell’s Army of the Ohio captures Tuscumbia, after taking Decatur yesterday and Huntsville last Friday. In Richmond, a worried President Jefferson Davis approves the drafting every white male between 18 and 35 for 3 years’ service. No exceptions were designated, although a number will be approved in a few days.

ON THIS DAY: Tuesday, April 15, 1862

2008-04-15T12:43:00.004-04:00

“Boots and Saddles”

It took a while for the cavalry to win an important role in the Civil War. During the war's buoyant first weeks, the six regiments of cavalry in the Regulars were thought to be enough. That ended with the shock of first battle of Bull Run, and, with authorization from the War Department, Ohio began raising its first regiment of horse soldiers in July 1861. But it was not until 1863 that cavalrymen were seen as being more than scouts, sentinels, orderlies, and messengers.

Ohio’s first call for cavalry volunteers was met with so much enthusiasm that 1^st Ohio Volunteer Cavalry’s officers could be highly selective in recruiting. They had their pick from the “yeomanry of Ohio.” Most recruits were farmers and their sons--strong, healthy men. The "yeomanry" not only knew their horses, but in some cases brought their own mounts with them (for which the government paid them 40 cents a day.).

The 1^st Ohio Volunteer Cavalry was organized at Camp Chase in Columbus. Diverse in its origins, the regiment drew members from 18 of Ohio’s 88 counties, most of which are in the southwestern part of the state. As hundreds of spectators watched, the regiment trained during beautiful fall weather of 1861. First, the men were trained in dismounted drill, twice a day, with no horses in sight. Only after the men were proficient in fighting on the ground were their horses issued and mounted drill begun.

Each trooper was equipped with a saber, revolver, and carbine, and carried in addition a rubber ground cover, an overcoat, shirt, extra underwear and socks, feed sack, lariat, curry-comb and brush. The men of the 1st Ohio were also furnished, by the United States Sanitary Commissions, with large cotton comforters, cumbersome and hard to pack. It took soldiers to lift a saddle, accompanied by a navy blue blanket blanket, onto the horse. Fully loaded with trooper and equipment, the cavalry horse groaned under a load weighing 255 to 270 pounds.

Mustered in October 5, the regiment of a thousand men left camp early in December, trotting through the streets of Columbus, the men singing "The Girl I Left Behind Me." Thousands of spectators, including families and sweethearts waving flags and handkerchiefs, cheered as the regiment headed for the stockyards and an awaiting train. After passing through Cincinnati, where they boarded steamboats that would carry them down the Ohio River, the men and their horses joined Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio in Louisville Kentucky. The 1^st Ohio Cavalry did not arrive at Pittsburg Landing (Shiloh) until shortly after the battle. They found a desolate and muddy field of shattered trees, wrecked artillery pieces, abandoned rifles and knapsacks. Many dead and wounded soldiers were still lying on the ground on April 9.

The 1^st Ohio settled down for nearly two weeks of miserable camping on the battlefield. Their tents had notyet arrived and it rained every day, so the troopers' blankets and clothing were never dry. Crude, temporary shelters had to be fashioned from saplings, saddles, and blankets.

While Halleck’s growing army waited for the order to advance on Beauregard’s Confederates 22 miles away at Corinth, Mississippi, the cavalrymen served as sentinels. They sat, mounted for tedious hours on their horses, and stationed out in front of the infantry camps. They were going nowhere, so they were bored, but they were also nervous. Other cavalrymen remained in reserve, trying to rest. ( A typical sentinel is pictured above.) However, there were nights when there was a great deal of firing on the picket line—often caused by wild animals, disoriented Union soldiers, or Confederate deserters It was not unusual for the reserves to be awakened half a dozen to a dozen times a night—often by a false alarm, occasionally for a skirmish with the enemy.

Unlike the Confederates, early in the war Union cavalry units were scattered among infantry units instead of being concentrated as a strategic combat arm. Later in the war, better organization and leadership will bring the Union cavalry out of the shadows. Until then, the “boots and saddles” bugle call will sound a little hollow to the cavalrymen from Ohio.

ON THIS DAY: Monday, April 14, 2008

2008-04-14T10:28:00.001-04:00

“At last I stand redeemed”

Brig. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman writes Ellen today from his camp on the Shiloh battleground. He recounts yesterday’s expedition up the Tennessee River that successfully destroyed an important railroad bridge, but his biggest news is about a message Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck has just sent to Washington. The brief letter praises Sherman’s performance at the battle of Shiloh, saying it “contributed largely to the glorious victory of the 7^th.” Halleck is recommending Sherman be promoted to major general.

Coming only days after Grant’s praise for Sherman’s performance, the once depressed Cump is now triumphant. “At last I stand redeemed from the vile slanders of the Cincinnati paper,” he tells Ellen. Sherman is referring to an article Murat Halstead published in the Cincinnati Commercial the previous December 11. Headlined “General William T. Sherman Insane,” the heavily opinionated piece painted a horrific picture of a Sherman terrified by events during his command in Kentucky. While the tightly wired Sherman may have suffered an emotional break in Kentucky, he never was “insane.”

Of course, part of Sherman’s problem with the press is his loathing for it, which the journalists return with interest. Now he tells Ellen how newspaper reporters “keep shy of me as I have said the first one I catch will hang as a spy.”

Then Sherman returns to his personal situation: “I made a fearful mistake in Kentucky and if I recover it will be a wonderful instance. I have made good progress here….”

He concludes, “I think you will have some satisfaction and I know your father will be pleased that I am once more restored to favor.”

ELSEWHERE IN THE CIVIL WAR: Skirmishes occur at Santa Fe Road, Diamond Grove, and Montevallo, all in Missouri, involving, on the Union side, mostly small cavalry detachments from Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri regiments. Nonetheless, two Union men are killed and seven wounded. From such little affairs, families suffer terrible losses while history scarcely notices.

Fort Pillow is a strategically located Confederate installation on the Chickasaw Bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River, north of Memphis, Tennessee. The fall of Island No. 10 to the north has made the fort vulnerable and today Federal mortar boats pound the fort and will continue until the Confederates abandon it in June.

ELSEWHERE IN THE CIVIL WAR: Under pressure from Union troops, Confederate forces are fleeing New Mexico. In Alabama, Brig. Gen. Ormsby M. Mitchel, the “astronomer-soldier” from Ohio, occupies Decatur. In the East, McClellan’s Army of the Potomac is advancing up the Virginia Peninsula, the Confederate capital of Richmond their object. Almost everywhere one looks, the Confederacy is in trouble.

ON THIS DAY: Sunday, April 13, 1862

2008-04-13T09:53:00.002-04:00

A Good Day’s Work

Having regained his self-confidence in the battle of Shiloh, Brig. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman spends the day making mischief in the enemy’s land. Escorted by the gunboats Tyler and Lexington, Sherman, 100 horsemen of the 4^th Illinois cavalry and a brigade of infantrymen use two steamboats to sail from Pittsburg Landing and up the Tennessee River, through northeastern Mississippi, and a few miles into northwest Alabama.

Disembarking at Chickasaw Landing, Alabama—about 15 miles from Pittsburg Landing, the cavalry chases some Confederate pickets, who burn one of their own bridges behind them. Next, the Union cavalry destroys 500 feet of railroad trestle over Bear Creek, tears down a half-mile of telegraph wire (throwing it into the river), and wrecks some railroad track, bending rails by heating them on bonfires of railroad ties. This cuts an important line of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, said to be the main connection between the eastern and western Confederacy.

Blocked by shoals from proceeding further and doing still more damage, Sherman’s expedition returns to Pittsburg Landing and the congratulations of Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, who now personally commands all troops in the area.

“Halleck was delighted,” Sherman will report to Ellen.

ELSEWHERE IN THE CIVIL WAR: Under pressure from Union troops, Confederate forces are fleeing New Mexico. In Alabama, Brig. Gen. Ormsby M. Mitchel, the “astronomer-soldier” from Ohio, occupies Decatur. In the East, McClellan’s Army of the Potomac is advancing up the Virginia Peninsula, the Confederate capital of Richmond the objective. Almost everywhere one looks, the Confederacy is in trouble.

IT’S COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK: April 12, 2011—3 years from now!—will be the 150^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861, April 12 was the day Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

ON THIS DAY: Saturday, April 12, 1862

2008-04-12T11:13:00.002-04:00

The Great Locomotive Chase

It is a story that began strangely and got even stranger, turning into one of the greatest adventures of the Civil War.

A few days ago, a strangely circumspect civilian named James J. Andrews came into the Alabama camps of the Union’s 9^th Brigade, 3^rd Division, Army of the Ohio, and called for volunteers for an undisclosed mission. Men with railroad experience were especially sought.

A total of 22 men from the 2^nd Ohio, 21^st Ohio, and 33^rd Ohio infantry regiments volunteered. Under Andrews’ direction, they changed into civilian clothes and were told to claim they were Kentuckians going to join the Confederate army. Then they left camp, told to work their way east through Confederate territory and head for a Western & Atlantic Railroad station at Marietta, Georgia.

A few of the men did not reach the Marietta railroad station, but by this morning the rest had. They bought tickets and boarded a train from Atlanta, heading north to Chattanooga. A few miles north, the train stopped at Big Shanty so everyone could get breakfast. Under the nose of unsuspecting Confederate sentinels, Andrews’ men uncouple the last few cars of the train and take command of the locomotive.

With a screech, what remained of the train—a locomotive named The General, its fuel-and-water tender, and three boxcars—takes off, a daring hijacking by Yankees deep in Confederate territory. The men have courage to spare, but they need luck as well. They are not to have it on this day.

The men have been told to destroy railroad bridges behind them, which would block quick Confederate reinforcement of Chattanooga, making it vulnerable to attack by Union forces. Capturing Chattanooga would be a big step toward Lincoln’s goal of freeing eastern Tennessee, an enclave of Union sympathizers surrounded by the Confederacy.

However, the hijackers’ ability to make their way north depends on dovetailing their progress with southbound trains headed south on the same track. Doing that smoothly requires that all trains be running on time. They are not. The captured train has to wait on sidings for southbound trains to pass.

Otherwise, things go well at first, the hijackers cutting telegraph wires and tearing up track—but burning no bridges. Confederates are doggedly pursuing the The General, at first on a railroad handcar, switching to a locomotive, and switching again to a faster locomotive. The pursuers repair broken track and push aside debris and burning boxcars left behind by the fleeing Ohioans.

Unable to outrun their pursuers and out of fuel, the Union men abandon The General near the Georgia/Tennessee border and scatter into the woods.

All are captured. Eight, including Andrews, are executed as spies. Six will be exchanged for prisoners held by the Union. Eventually, 19 members of the raiding party will be awarded the newly created Congressional Medal of Honor. The very first recipient of the Medal of Honor is an Ohioan named Jacob Parrott, a member of the 33^rd Ohio and the youngest hijacker. He had resisted Confederate beatings intended to make him talk. Parrott had been born near Lancaster, Ohio. After the war he moved to Kenton, where he later died and is buried in Grove Cemetery.

In 1927, Buster Keaton made a comedy-drama about the Great Locomotive Chase, as the event has come to be known. In 1956, the Walt Disney organization made a movie by that name. Fess Parker played James J. Andrews.

On this day: Friday, April 11, 1862

2008-04-11T15:35:00.001-04:00

“I am forced into prominence”

It took four days after the battle at Pittsburg Landing Tennessee, (“Shiloh”) but finally Brig. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, sits down to write his wife, Ellen. Emotionally fractured by the pressure of his duties only a few months before, Sherman now sounds positively jaunty.

Last Sunday morning he was caught off-guard by a surprise Confederate attack that never should been a surprise, but Sherman didn't waver in his duty. Many of his men, including officers, fled in panic, but Sherman boldly galloped back and forth across the battlefield, waving his sword and rallying his remaining troops. The Confederates’ attack was overwhelming, but, under Sherman’s direction, his remaining 5^th Division men fought stubbornly, giving up ground reluctantly and slowing down the Confederate advance.

“Well we have had a big battle where they shot real bullets and I am safe, except for a buckshot wound in my hand and a bruised shoulder from a spent ball,” Sherman writes, adopting a slightly ironic tone. He admits he had some close calls: three horses were shot out from under him and his orderly and bodyguard, an Illinoisan named Thomas D. Holliday, was killed by his side.

Despite his studied casualness about it all, Sherman admits the battle was a hard struggle. “I won’t attempt to give an account of the battle [Ellen is advised to read the newspapers and “cut out paragraphs with my name”] but they say that I accomplished some important results and Gen. Grant makes special mention of me in his report which he shew me.”

In fact, Sherman and Grant were becoming closely acquainted, with Sherman undoubtedly impressed by Grant’s calm resolve during the battle. Cump is feeling confident enough to accept the possibility of playing an important role in the war to come. “I have worked hard to keep down but somehow I am forced into prominence and might as well submit,” he tells Ellen, reversing his previous resolve to stay in the background and let others be the leaders.

Elsewhere at Pittsburg Landing, something momentous is happening. Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck has arrived from his St. Louis headquarters to take over command, relegating Grant to a meaningless secondary position. Halleck has never commanded more than a platoon in the field. Soon, Pope’s Army of the Mississippi, fresh from its victory at Island No. 10, will join the forces already at Pittsburg Landing, and then, under Halleck’s direction, perhaps the slowest and most ponderous advances of any army in the Civil War will begin.

ELSEWHERE IN THE CIVIL WAR: This afternoon, Fort Pulaski, a Confederate emplacement guarding the channel to Savannah, Georgia, surrenders. Union cannon on nearby Tybee Island had fired over 5,000 projectiles against the fort, blasting two holes through its brick wall. Capturing the fort expands the Union naval blockade of the Confederacy.

In Alabama, Union forces under Brig. Gen. Ormsby McKnight Mitchel, an Ohio professor of science known as the “Astronomer-Soldier," occupies Huntsville, an important center for Confederate rail and river transportation.

ON THIS DAY: Wednesday, April 9, 1862

2008-04-09T08:53:00.001-04:00

“Inexcusable Inefficiency?”

Today, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant sends his report of the battle of Pittsburg Landing (later to become known as the “battle of Shiloh”) to the St. Louis headquarters of his commander, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck. (Grant’s statement in his Memoirs that he never made “a full official report” of Shiloh is misleading.)

Grant’s account of the battle itself is technically correct, if brief. More than half his report is devoted instead to praising various members of his command, most of all for Brig. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, “a gallant and able officer [who] displayed great judgment and skill.” Grant does not say his army was surprised, nor how far back it was driven, nor how thousands of men—“skulkers”—deserted the battlefield for the shelter of the bluff by the river. And, though he gives Don Carlos Buell some words of praise, he does not--nor ever will--say Buell's Army of the Ohio made the critical difference on the second day of the battle.

When, in days to come, criticism of Grant rings out in northern newspapers, Sherman will stoutly defend him. To the end of their days, Grant and Sherman will deny they were surprised at Shiloh.

Others will be less generous. Within a few days, Capt. Emerson Opdycke, who served as acting major of the 41^st Ohio during the second day’s battle, will write his wife a withering assessment of Grant.

“Such inexcusable inefficiency ought to cost Gen. Grant his office if not his life,” wrote Opdycke. “No good officer need ever be surprised to the extend he was if he but regard the plainest rules of war.”

Opydcke’s forthrightness emulates that of his immediate commander, Col. William B. Hazen, who was never one to mince words. In his post-war memoir, Hazen was tart about whether Grant was surprised at Shiloh.

“The question whether our men were surprised seems scarcely to merit attention,” Hazen will write. “The facts covering this point are well known, and all that remains is to define the military meaning of ‘a surprise’…If a hostile force secretly places itself where it can force a battle before this [preparation of defensive forces] can be done and the troops can in all respects make themselves ready, then a surprise is effected.”

Among the evidences of the surprise, according to Hazen, were that the enemy captured Union officers’ horses at the picket line and took their blankets, and that civilian sutlers’ supplies—which would have been long gone if a battle had been anticipated—remained to tempt the Confederates.

Grant will pay a price for having been surprised, but will recover and go on to great success. Journalist Whitelaw Reid, one of the general’s critics immediately after the battle, will later recall how Grant remained calm and optimistic after the first day’s battle, telling Sherman, “Lick ‘em tomorrow, though.” From Shiloh, Reid wrote, “I date, in my own case at least, the beginnings of any belief in Grant’s greatness.”

IT’S COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK: April 12, 2011—less than 3½ years from now!—will be the 150^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861, April 12 was the day Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.