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

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?

ON THIS DAY: Tuesday, March 18, 1862

“It will be a big lick”

At 3 o’clock this morning, in his headquarters overlooking the Tennessee River at Savannah, Tennessee, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant writes his beloved Julia, “When you hear of another great and important strike I can’t tell you, but it will be a big lick so far as numbers are concerned.

“I have no misgivings myself as to the result and you must not feel the slightest alarm.

“With one more great success I do not see how the rebellion is to be sustained.”

We shall see.

A few miles upriver, at Pittsburg Landing, Brig. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, writes his wife, Ellen. He has less to say about what may be coming, but admits, “We may have fights at Purdy and Corinth.”

Most of his letter describes his failed strike, a few days earlier, at a Confederate railroad line. “The rain fell in torrents…and the Tennessee River rose 15 feet in one day,” he says.

Sherman goes on to describe the countryside as largely deserted by its residents. “In a circuit of many miles I find houses abandoned, the people having fled, because they are told we take everything we can lay our hands on, [including] all the pretty girls…I had an old man who really believed this, and was much assured when I said if he would stay at home & mind his own business I would not permit the soldiers to disturb him..

“On going to his house, his wife & children had fled to the woods as though we were savages—Our soldier do in spite of all efforts burn [fence] rails, steal geese, chickens, &c &c.”

Twenty-two miles from Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River, the Rebel railroad junction at Corinth (pictured above) begins receiving its first Confederate troops from Murfreesboro, part of a massive buildup to block further Union advances along the river.

ELSEWHERE IN THE CIVIL WAR: Confederate President Jefferson Davis makes some changes in his Cabinet, most notably naming George W. Randolph of Virginia as secretary of war, succeeding Judah P. Benjamin, moved to secretary of state. However, the Confederacy will find a secretary of war to match the Union’s irascible but brilliant Edwin M. Stanton, a lawyer born and raised in Steubenville, Ohio.

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.

Your suggestions, comments, and questions about this blog are always welcome. Address the author: Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com
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For more information about the author and his newest book, please go to http://www.orangefrazer.com/btg

ON THIS DAY: Tuesday, Feb. 11, 1862

A “convocation,” not a council

In a “council of war” aboard the steamboat New Uncle Sam, docked at Fort Henry in northwestern Tennessee, Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant sits and smokes silently, “but never said a word,” one of the generals—Lew Wallace (right)—later recalled of the meeting, called to plan the attack on Fort Donelson. “In all probability he was framing the orders of march which were issued that night,” sniffed Wallace, who considered the meeting “a convocation” and not a traditional council, wherein give-and-take was expected.

If General Wallace—better known today for writing Ben Hur than for his generalship—was put out by what he seemed to think was a sham council of war (to be followed in a few weeks by a serious issue between Wallace and Grant), he nonetheless sketched an accurate word picture of Grant the man. “From the first his silence was remarkable,” Wallace wrote of Grant. “He knew how to keep his temper. In battle, as in camp, he went about quietly, speaking in a conversational tone; yet he appeared to see everything that went on , and was always intent on business.”

The quiet solemnity of this man who seemed impossible to ruffle and yet was a great noticer of everything around him would be remarked upon again and again by others. To Wallace, Grant seemed supremely inner-directed, issuing orders with calm confidence and so little discussion thatt “his aides were little more than messengers.” There would be occasions as the war progressed when Grant would be more consultative, but Wallace’s description of Grant’s appearance would remain unchanged: “In dress he was plain, even negligent; in partial amendment of that his horse was always a good one and well kept.”

ELSEWHERE IN THE CIVIL WAR:

At home on furlough in Ohio since February 4, Lt. Col. Rutherford B. Hayes finally emerges to pay a visit in Columbus to visit his brother-in-law. In Washington, President Lincoln listens to a stenographic report of testimony given in the case of Gen. Charles S. Stone of Massachusetts, suspected of treason in connection with the debacle at Balls Bluff last October. Sen. Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio, chairman of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, is one of the bloodhounds dogging General Stone; War Secretary Edwin M. Stanton, also of Ohio, is another. However, most of Lincoln’s day is devoted to his deathly ill son, Willie, and son Tad, now ill as well. The White House reception usually held on Tuesdays is cancelled for this reason.

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.

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

ON THIS DAY: Thursday, Jan. 16, 1862

A Sham Battle

Today, Cpl. Robert Caldwell of Elmore, Ohio, settles down to finish a letter to his mother that he began writing yesterday. He only had time that evening to tell her that he now weighs 170 pounds (the hungry times will come later). Then came the last bugle call of the night.

The next morning, the men of the 21^st Ohio and some other regiments in camp at Camp Jefferson in Kentucky donned loaded backpacks and began marching at half past eight..

They were going to intercept an enemy supply train, ran one of the many rumors, but, after marching only a mile, they came to a large field. They were going to have a sham battle! Robert told his mother in some wonderment. Military exercises simulating combat, common practice in the 21^st century, were unusual in the 19^th.

Breathlessly, Robert writes that a company of the 4^th Ohio Cavalry—his neighbors in camp—pretended to attack the infantry from one direction, only to wheel, retreat, and attack from a different direction. Meanwhile, the infantrymen were popping away with guns loaded only with powder.

All the while, artillery pieces, pulled by horses, rushed “here and there wheeling and firing with empty guns, with terrible effect upon the imaginary enemy,” Robert wrote, quite impressed with it all.

Thus the fight raged for upwards of half a day (the young soldier continued), when thinking that the foe had been sufficiently chastised for the present, with tired limbs but fearless hearts we changed our mode of attacks and charged upon our dinner with equal effect, and [then] were ordered back to camp, where we arrived without any further adventure.

Thus terminated our first great fight in this part of Kentucky, I believe our loss consisted of one barrel [of] crackers, nothing more.

After that exciting news, Robert closed with the soldiers’ staple letter-filler, the local weather: cold, rain, one inch of snow, then rain again, meaning the soldiers are living in an ever-deepening mudhole. (Pictured above: an Illinois regiment in their tent near Corinth, Mississippi)

ELSEWHERE IN THE WAR: Confirmed by the Senate only yesterday, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton wastes no time in taking over the War Department with energy, enthusiasm, and little patience for corruption and inefficiency. Stanton discovers that the previous secretary, Silas Cameron, had left him “a rats’ nest” of problems. “We have had no war,” Stanton grumbles. “We have not even been playing war.” Things are going to change very fast. In southern Kentucky, meanwhile, a Confederate force led by Brig. Gen. Felix K. Zollicoffer unwisely camps with their backs to the Cumberland River and facing in the direction of a rumored Federal force led by Brig. Gen. George H. Thomas, a loyalist Virginia and a man Confederates would come to know well, to their regret.

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.

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

ON THIS DAY: Monday, Jan. 13, 1862

The Bear

He was a brilliant, short-tempered, stocky bully of a man, whose hard eyes staring out of a profusion of whiskers resembled a bear peering out of a briar patch. He was hard to like and hard to resist, and he had not only memorably insulted Abraham Lincoln years ago, he had kept up a drumbeat of criticism of the President in the first, difficult months of the war, proclaiming “the imbecility of this administration.” He was an Ohio Democrat named Edwin McMasters Stanton and today something amazing happens to him.

This morning, President Lincoln, a Republican, tells his Cabinet that he is going to choose Stanton as his secretary of war, replacing the ineffective Pennsylvania politico Simon Cameron. This incomprehensible action—the President choosing a man who had insulted and criticized him bitterly and who was a member of the opposition party—is but one example of how Lincoln could see possibilities other men couldn’t.

Warned that the bull-headed Stanton “might run away with the whole concern,” Lincoln recalled a Midwestern preacher whose liveliness made church members want to put bricks in his pockets to hold him down. “I may have to do that with Stanton,” Lincoln said, “but if I do, bricks in his pockets will be better than bricks in his hat. I’ll risk him for a while without either.”

Stanton was a Democrat, but unlike many Democrats, he was strongly opposed to both secession and slavery. He had spent part of his time as attorney general under the benighted President Buchanan secretly subverting secessionist tendencies in Washington.

Years before the war, Stanton had been lead attorney on a lawsuit and by chance Lincoln was assigned to his legal team in a Cincinnati court. Stanton repeatedly snubbed Lincoln during their mutual stay in Cincinnati, and sneered at him as “a long, lank creature” and a “giraffe.”

But Stanton was a brilliant lawyer with a reputation for getting things done, no matter the obstacles, and he had two other things going for him: he was known to favor vigorous prosecution of the war and he had the support of Lincoln’s general-in-chief, George B. McClellan, who also was a Democrat.

In the years of war, Stanton would prove to have been a brilliant choice. Congressman Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts will write after the war, “If Lincoln was essential to the success of the Union, it is no less true that Stanton was essential to the success of Lincoln.” Another commentator said, “If Lincoln was the heart of the war effort, Stanton was the head.”

OTHER EVENTS IN LINCOLN'S DAY: An ad hoc council of generals, Cabinet members, Lincoln, and McClellan meet to discuss how to get the Union armies moving McClellan, his feathers ruffled by the meeting, rudely refuses to divulge his plans. Lincoln writes Generals Halleck and Buell in the West, urging them to action against the enemy and stressing a strategy of "menacing him with superior forces at different points, at the same time." While still deferring to the generals' superior knowledge of warfare, Lincoln nonetheless is displaying greater wisdom. And his patience is running out.

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.

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