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

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 6-12, 1862

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

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.