Blood, Tears, and Glory

Friday, February 29, 2008

ON THIS DAY: Friday, Feb. 28, 1862

Grant “in readiness”

Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant has returned to Fort Donelson after visiting Nashville, now held by elements of Buell’s Army of the Ohio. Just as Grant was leaving, he met Buell at the edge of the Cumberland River and learned that the retreating Confederate forces are now thought to be at Murfreesborough, about 30 miles away, weakened and offering a tempting target. Always ready to advance, Grant writes Halleck’s headquarters, “I will hold my force in readiness for a move on very short notice.” Grant has no idea that the wrath of Halleck will descend on his head very shortly.

ELSEWHERE IN THE CIVIL WAR: With Sen. Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio, chairman of the Committee on Conduct of the War present, President Lincoln interviews Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan about the failure of the “Harper’s Ferry plan.” Responding to Lincoln’s “General Order No. 1” to get Union troops marching on all fronts, McClellan has led 40,000 men up the Potomac to Harper’s Ferry, where they and their supply trains were supposed to cross the river on a bridge resting on some canal boats sent up from Washington. Then it was discovered the canal boats were a few inches too wide to pass through the locks on their way to the bridge site. Fiasco. Embarrassment all around. And now McClellan is being interrogated by a frustrated Lincoln, who only yesterday said, “The general impression is daily gaining ground that the General [McClellan] does not intend to do anything.”

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, Feb. 27, 1862

“Best soldier in the world”

“The American citizen, properly commanded and instructed, makes the best soldier in the world,” Gen. William Babcock Hazen wrote in his post-war memoirs, proudly recalling those days when he “properly commanded and instructed” the raw soldiery of the West. On this date in 1862, he issued the following orders to his brigade, now camped two miles from Nashville:

1. “There will be bayonet exercise…from nine to ten a.m. and battalion drill from eleven to twelve.

2. “At four p.m….the regimental grounds [will] be thoroughly policed under direction of the officer of the day.

3. Officers’ drill, until further orders, will be that of skirmishers. None are excused from the above duties…”

In what his men would undoubtedly have called an understatement, Hazen fondly recalled that “While at Nashville, we were very busily engaged with drills and preparation for moving forward.”

Two days before, Hazen’s 19^th Brigade of Don Carlos Buell ‘s Army of the Ohio had marched into Nashville, abandoned only the day before by its Confederate defenders. One of Hazen’s most trusted officers, Capt. Emerson Opdycke of the 41^st Ohio writes his wife today about how happy he is to be in Nashville. “It is a beautiful city. People seem glad to see us. Many had left, supposing we would plunder and destroy; but they are now seeing their great error… I am delighted with Nashville and its surroundings.”

Not everyone welcomes the Union forces, however. Reporting a common reaction to their appearance throughout the war, Opdycke notes, “The women are by far the bitterest against us, knowing they can say what they pleased without fear of injury.”

(Pictured above: the 51st Ohio Volunteer infan try on dress parade in Nashville)

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

Thursday, February 28, 2008

ON THIS DAY: Tuesday, Feb. 25, 1862

The colonel arrives

Col. William Babcock Hazen, acting commander of the 19^th Brigade of Brig. Gen. Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio, rides into Nashville. Recently deserted by their Confederate defenders, many unhappy citizens remain in the city. It is Hazen‘s observation that “the people showed great bitterness.”

Riding a short distance in front of his brigade, Hazen has barely turned a corner when a well-dressed woman ahead of him “stamped vigorously upon the sidewalk and cheered for Jeff Davis.” Then Hazen’s brigade, marching smartly with arms glistening in the sun, follows him around the corner. The woman took one look at the oncoming thousands and “betook herself at double-quick to the nearest house.”

Hazen halts at the St. Cloud Hotel, where the host, a Mr. Carter, invited the colonel and his staff for drinks at his bar. Carter “tasted everything first…to assure us.” Out of curiosity, Hazen examines the hotel’s register, discovering his immediate predecessor was William Babcock of Illinois, “a cousin I had not seen since a child of three years, and never since.” Throughout the war, symbolic incidents like these will remind soldiers North and South again and again how closely they were related, whether by blood or in spirit—fellow Americans all.

Hazen and his men found something else in the hotel: “Fast asleep and very drunk, one Rebel soldier, the largest man I ever saw in uniform.” Hazen sent him away with a single guard, the pair looking like “a veritable giant guarded by a pygmy. We all wondered if he was a sample of the men we were about to encounter.”

ELSEWHERE IN THE CIVIL WAR: In Richmond, the Confederate capital, the bitter words of politicians reflect the Confederacy’s anxiety over the losses in Tennessee. The people’s representatives are angry and demanding investigation into the performance of their generals and even President Jefferson Davis.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

ON THIS DAY: Monday, Feb. 24, 1862

Grant bulls ahead

Ordered by Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck not to move on Nashville, Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant waits impatiently at Fort Donelson, handling the routine duties required by a large encamped army.

Between chores Grant writes his wife, Julia, telling her that Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, the Confederacy’s western commander, has “fallen back about forty miles south from Nashville leaving the river clear to our troops.” Grant has already ordered some of Buell’s troops—without Buell’s knowledge—to move up the Cumberland on steamboats, preceded by a gunboat. If Grant himself can’t advance on Nashville, he will make sure somebody does…in this case, under the command of Brig. Gen. William “Bull” Nelson (pictured).

Until he dies a most unusual death later this year, Nelson will serve as one of the war’s most colorful characters. A huge man—300 pounds of muscle and bone—Nelson is notorious for enormous rages, which alternate with an overwhelming geniality. He had served in the navy during the Mexican War and began service in the Civil War commanding gunboats on the Ohio River. A native Kentuckian, Nelson rallied other Kentuckians to the Union side and in September 1861 was appointed a brigadier general in the army.

Nelson’s troop transports will arrive at Nashville just as the first elements of Buell’s Army of the Ohio begin appearing on the north bank of the river. Without even being there, Grant has reached Nashville first.

Grant’s letter belies his later, undeserved, nickname of “Butcher Grant.” He tells Julia, “”These terrible battles are very good things to read about for persons lose no friends but I am decidedly in favor of having as little of it as possible. The way to avoid it is to push forward as vigorously as possible.”

ELSEWHERE IN THE CIVIL WAR: Skirmishes occur in Missouri. At the White House, a simple funeral service is conducted in the East room for little Willie Lincoln, who had died four days before of typhoid. A bright boy, mature for his age, Willie was 11.

ON THIS DAY: Sunday, Feb. 23, 1862

Nashville is doomed

The streets of the Confederate capital of Tennessee are filled with rushing soldiers, men, and wagons, struggling to escape the city as Federal soldiers and gunboats approach.

Losing Nashville will be a severe blow to the Confederacy, for it is the breakaway nation’s main supply depot and rail center in the Western Theater. The Confederacy’s eight largest city, it is also an important industrial center and one the agrarian South can ill afford to lose.

With Grant’s capture of Fort Donelson, downriver from Nashville on the Cumberland, the city can no longer be defended. Grant has punched a hole through the center of the Confederacy’s so-called “Kentucky Line”—once a nearly straight line of defiance, running from Arkansas to the Appalachians.

Now Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio is descending on Nashville from the North. Federal gunboats are cruising the Cumberland. Grant’s victorious army is waiting ominously at Fort Donelson, where it captured 15,000 Rebel soldiers, and Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston’s diminished army is split into two wings—one at Columbus, Kentucky, on the Mississippi River, the other at Nashville, but scrambling fast to get out.

For reasons having to do more with army politics than winning the war, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck has denied Grant’s plan to advance on Nashville himself. But with a cunning and a determination that belie his quiet, self-effacing manner, Grant comes up with a work-around.

Imbued with the confident authority that comes from success in battle (and promotion to major general), he ignores department lines and orders two of Brigadier General Buell’s divisions, now near Paducah and separated from Buell, to advance on Nashville. These divisions had been ordered west to aid Grant’s attack on Fort Donelson, but had arrived too late. Grant co-opts them without asking Buell’s permission.

Buell will arrive in Nashville the day after tomorrow to discover that Grant has beaten him to the punch—using Buell’s own men. However, Grant is content to let Buell take the limelight for entering Nashville, so long as the point is won for the Union. Now Grant hopes to make an advance of his own.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

ON THIS DAY: Saturday, Feb. 22, 1862

Letters home

Capt. Emerson Opdycke [pictured] of the 41^st Ohio has a headache. Until yesterday, Opdycke’s regiments and others in Hazen’s Brigade were in steamboats “going up and down the [Cumberland] river,” killing time while awaiting orders. They had arrived too late to participate in the battle of Fort Donelson. Finally coming to rest at Paducah, Opdycke rushes off the boat and into a photographer’s studio.

The captain’s wife, Lucy, has been pestering him for a picture, so a peevish Opdycke spends a frustrating morning at the studio trying to get a good one taken. The best he can get “is so outrageous, I shall have a notion to pitch it into the Ohio [River]; I would do so, only I know I shall never have any peace until you have a picture of some kind.”

Because of all the fussing in the studio, Opdycke returns to his boat with a headache that “came near to sending me to bed.” By evening, he feels better about the picture, so he turns to fretting about something else. “I am sick of doing nothing, while others are doing so much. Our arms are winning glorious triumphs, which are but the beginning of the end of the rebellion,” he concludes, fearing he will lose out on the action.

Others are writing as well. Near Fort Donelson, Pvt. Andrew Altman of the 68^th Ohio uses his knapsack as a writing desk (“It is a poor place for to wright”). He tells a younger brother, Isaac, “You must not cut up” in school and asks him to “tell all the scholars at school that I think of them every day and hope they may do well.”

In Cincinnati, Lt. Col. Rutherford B. Hayes is enjoying a final day or two of furlough at home. He writes his mother that the “recent victories [meaning Grant’s triumphs at Forts Henry and Donelson] convince everyone that the Rebellion can be conquered. Most people anticipate a speedy end of the war.”

This evening. Grant himself writes his wife, Julia, to tell he has just learned he is being promoted to major general. “There is but little doubt but that Fort Donelson was the hardest fought battle on the continent. I was extremely lucky to be the commanding officer.

“I have no doubt but you have read of Fort Donelson until you have grown tired of the name so I shall write you no more of the subject. Hope to make a new subject soon.”

And he would.

ON THIS DAY: Friday, Feb. 21, 1862

One Interview, Two Views

Col. William B. Hazen, commander now of the 19^th Brigade in Buell’s Army of the Ohio, has spent three months rusticating in a pesthole known as Camp Wickcliffe in Kentucky. As was common in army camps early in the war, Camp Wickcliffe was tormented by health problems, especially diarrhea and measles.

A few days ago, Hazen’s brigade was shipped down the Cumberland River to join Grant’s siege of Fort Donelson, only to arrive after it was over. Hazen’s brigade came to rest at Paducah, while higher authority decided where to send it next. While at Paducah, Hazen met Brig. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman for the first time.

Sherman, until recently sequestered in a backwater of the water, has suddenly been elevated to command of the District of Cairo. He is both excited at this unexpected opportunity and regretful still about his emotional breakdown in November. “All I hope for is a chance to recover from the past,” he writes his wife, Ellen. He also tells her he just had “a long interview” with Brig. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner (pictured above), the fallen commander of Fort Donelson and a Union prisoner, being held on a steamboat anchored in the Cumberland River.

Apparently, it was a fruitful discussion. “I used to know him well and he frankly told me of many things I wanted to know.” Buckner places the blame for his downfall on Maj. Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, the Confederacy’s western commander. Writing his brother, Sherman says, “I have seen Buckner & prisoners of war, and learned many things not heretofore known.”

Hazen took a different view of Sherman’s meeting with Buckner, at which he was present. Before the war, Hazen had known Buckner well, considered him “a man of many fine qualities,” and was “touched at seeing him our prisoner.”

Perhaps because of that, Hazen was poorly impressed by the meeting at which Sherman “learned many things not heretofore known.” Hazen claimed the meeting “was destitute of an y element of cordiality,--a few cold words only passing between Sherman and Buckner,--the latter taking Sherman to task for opposing peaceable secession, who replied that the Southern people had no right to seize public property, and that they must not expect submission” [from the Federal government.]

Two views of the same small event. Sherman said Buckner “frankly told me of many things I wanted to know.” Hazen remembered only “a few cold words” passing between the two, concluding, “I was not agreeably impressed by the meeting.”

It was not the first time, and certainly not the last during this war, in which participants in an event would remember it differently—even if they belonged to the same side.,

ELSEWHERE IN THE CIVIL WAR: Although much of it will be scarcely remembered, there will be warfare in almost every corner of the United States. In New Mexico today, Confederates under Brig. Gen. H.H. Sibley drive the Federals under Col. E. R. S. Canby into Fort Craig., This is the battle of Valverde, named for a Rio Grande ford. This small battle included two remarkable events. At one point, Texas cavalrymen charged with lances. At another point, Union soldiers created an Improvised Explosive Device, consisting of a mule loaded with gunpowder. The mule was detonated and demolished, but no Confederates were harmed.

In Washington, meanwhile, there is mourning for Willie Lincoln, the President’s son, who died of typhoid yesterday in the White House.