THE SITUATION BEFORE SHILOH
During the autumn of 1861 the troops of both sides were pushed into
the "neutral" state of Kentucky at various points and in considerable
numbers. Two battles of some moment resulted. At a place called
Paintville, on the Big Sandy river in the eastern part of the state,
Humphrey Marshall established himself with about 2,000 or 2,500
Confederates. Colonel Garfield (afterwards General and still later
President), in command of a substantially equal force of Federals,
assailed Marshall there, pushed his columns back and on January 10,
1862, so far crippled him in a small but hotly contested pitched battle
that Marshall was glad to retreat during the night with a loss of
morale which at that period of the war was as important as the loss of
guns.
In the meanwhile the Confederate General Zollicoffer, one of those
amateurs in the military art who managed by political or other interest
to push themselves into military command on either side, invaded
eastern Kentucky, was defeated on October 21st, and fell back to Mill
Springs on the upper waters of the Cumberland, where he fortified
himself.
General Don Carlos Buell on the Federal side was in command of the
department, and General George H. Thomas was in command of the column
that immediately confronted Zollicoffer.
General Thomas was a Virginian by birth and was passionately devoted to
his native state and its historic memories. He had been at the outbreak
of the war a major in that specially selected regiment of which Robert
E. Lee was colonel and in which the roster of his fellow officers
included besides Lee Albert Sydney Johnston, William J. Hardee, Earl
Van Dorn, E. Kirby Smith, John B. Hood and Fitzhugh Lee. All of these,
Thomas's fellow Southerners, resigned their commissions and accepted
service in the Confederate army. Thomas, who had very remarkably
distinguished himself in the service, might well have been strongly
tempted, not only by the example of these his beloved comrades and by
his sentimental affection for his native state, but additionally by
the direct certainty of an exalted command in the Confederate army,
to go with them into the Southern service. To him peculiarly came
the perplexing problem of divided allegiance which presented itself
to every old army officer of Southern birth, and it is said--whether
truthfully or not the historian cannot determine--that for a time he
seriously and painfully hesitated whether to cast in his lot with
Virginia and the South, and thus join his most cherished comrades, or
to retain his place in the service of the nation that had educated
him as a soldier and that had so generously recognized and so richly
rewarded his genius and his devotion in the past. In the end he decided
to adhere to the Federal cause, and very early in the war he was
offered that supreme command of the Federal armies which Robert E. Lee
had refused. He too declined that honor and responsibility, remaining,
however, in the Federal service and becoming one of the most brilliant
commanders in the Northern armies.
At Mill Springs with seven regiments, two batteries, and a handful of
cavalry, he assailed Zollicoffer--who was killed in action--overthrew
him and his successor Crittenden, and in effect drove the Confederates
across the river. This was the first considerable victory won by the
Federal arms in any part of the country after the Manassas defeat
and its moral effect was naturally very great. It antedated Grant's
victories, but was of course insignificant in comparison with them.
In the meantime General Buell was busily organizing the Army of the
Ohio, with headquarters at Louisville and very skilfully endeavoring to
maneuver the Confederates out of Kentucky without a pitched battle, the
results of which might have been for better or for worse in the then
undisciplined condition of his troops. It was a period of the war in
which orderly battles were imminently perilous to the Federal cause,
because success in them would have accomplished little while failure in
them--which might easily result from the rawness of the troops--would
have made of every border state a Confederate possession and stronghold.
General Buell was afterwards bitterly censured for not having fought
great battles. It seems a sounder judgment which awards him praise
for having maneuvered the Confederates out of Kentucky and far into
Tennessee, without risking all results upon the hazard of any single
contest which, with his raw troops, he might or might not have won.
But when Grant and Foote succeeded in capturing Fort Henry and Fort
Donelson, the situation was fundamentally changed. There was a large
and rapidly increasing force at Louisville and near Bowling Green under
General Buell. Grant had his victorious forces at the two strongholds
of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. It was obviously easy and obviously
wise to move with the two armies upon Nashville and add the conquest of
all the Tennessee strongholds to that already achieved of all positions
that could by any possibility give to the Confederates a standing
ground in Kentucky.
In brief Grant's idea was to employ all available forces in the
quick reduction of important Confederate positions, the overthrow
of all Confederate armed forces, and the breaking of Confederate
resisting power before it could have time to strengthen itself with
reinforcements or with fortifications, or still more important with the
organization, disciplining and seasoning of its troops. Accordingly
he notified General Halleck that he purposed to move at once upon
Nashville and positions beyond, unless forbidden to do so.
He was promptly forbidden to do anything of the kind, and peremptorily
called back from a career of easy and obvious victory. For who was
this $800 Galena clerk? What right had he to plan campaigns and carry
them to a success that reflected no credit upon his regular army
military superiors? It is true that he had captured Forts Henry and
Donelson, with 14,623 men, 65 cannon, and 17,000 stands of small arms,
with ammunition and accouterments in proportion. It is true that he
had made Federal possessions of two important rivers reaching into
the heart of the Confederacy and commanding its most important line
of defense. It is true that he had won the first great inspiriting
success of the war for the Federal arms. It is true that he had broken
that carefully constructed line of defense which the Confederates had
established from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. It is true that he
had placed the National forces in such a position within the heart
of the Confederacy that a further and decisive advance into Alabama,
Georgia and Mississippi was obvious and easy. But on the other hand he
was only a volunteer, possessing no rank or place in that regular army
group which, at the North and at the South alike, stoutly asserted its
claim to command by virtue of regularity and seniority of commission
and wholly without regard to demonstrated genius or proved capacity.
Grant's achievements in the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson were so
far recognized at Washington that he was presently raised from the rank
of brigadier to that of major-general of _volunteers_. But he was still
denied even a junior second lieutenant's place in the regular army,
and in the meantime an officer in the regular army was authorized and
entitled not only to order him to do things--a small matter to a man
disposed and accustomed to do things but to forbid him to do things--a
matter of much greater consequence to such a man.
General Halleck's official position was immeasurably superior to that
of Grant--at best a mere major-general of volunteers--while his
military capacity was in an equal degree inferior to Grant's. Grant
habitually won battles. Halleck never did. Grant conducted campaigns to
success. Did Halleck? It has already been shown for how long Halleck
restrained Grant from undertaking his expedition against Fort Henry
and Fort Donelson. When that campaign resulted in such a success as
had not before been anywhere achieved by the Federal arms, Grant very
naturally wanted to follow it up in ways calculated speedily to break
the Confederate resistance, to occupy the commanding positions in the
Confederacy and to push Federal columns southward through the seceding
states, cutting them in twain and making an end of their unity. It
seemed to him when Forts Henry and Donelson were in his possession
quite a matter of course that he should move with his 27,000 men upon
Nashville and other strategic points further south, and that all
available forces, including Buell's strong and steadily increasing
army, should be ordered to join him and assist him in the execution
of this enterprise before the Confederates could organize effective
resistance. In brief it seemed to Grant, simple soldier that he was,
that the purpose of the organization of the Federal forces was to win
the war as quickly as possible and with the smallest possible sacrifice
of life and treasure. The shortest road to that end was to follow up
his victory by the capture of other Confederate positions, the conquest
of which was then easy and the possession of which seemed to promise
that result.
But Grant had already offended his superior officer, not only by
proposing operations which should have been suggested--as they were
not--from "regular" headquarters, but still more by carrying such
amateurish operations to a successful conclusion and by winning,
without any sort of credit to headquarters, the first conspicuous and
country-inspiriting victory that the Federal arms could claim. The land
was resounding with Grant's praises even while Halleck was putting
him under virtual arrest, and not a word was said in extolment of the
genius of Halleck who had so reluctantly consented to this volunteer
officer's enterprise. Manifestly this ex-Galena clerk who had a genius
for doing things must be restrained. Otherwise he would presently run
away with all the glory that belonged by prescriptive right to his
superiors in the regular army, and particularly to General Halleck, in
his cushioned quarters at St. Louis.
Accordingly General Grant was censured for his unauthorized advance
upon Nashville, and instead of proceeding against Confederate
strongholds further South which were easily within his vigorous and
resolute grasp, was peremptorily ordered to return to the forts which
he had captured with such splendor of success and there to sit still
till released from what amounted to arrest.
It was the story of Manassas over again, except that it was reversed
in its application. As after Manassas Washington lay an easy prey to
the Confederates, which by reason of incapacity they did not grasp, so,
and in like measure, the central strongholds of the Confederacy lay,
after the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson, within the easy grasp
of Grant's army. The only difference was that in the one case it was
the inexperience of the general in the field that forbade, while in
the other it was the paralyzing prohibition of the general in a secure
headquarters that stood in the way of achievement.
In the one case it was the predestined men of action who faltered
and failed of their opportunity. In the other the man of action was
restrained by "orders" which he dared not disobey.
Thus by the paralysis of Halleck's official hand, Grant was restrained
from pushing the war to results--possibly even to a conclusion--prompt,
certain and immediate.
General Halleck, who never in all his life commanded an army in battle,
was by the pure unreason of military law and etiquette officially
authorized to restrain the military impulse of Grant toward manifestly
right ends.
Grant had neglected, or was accused of having neglected, some technical
formality as to details in making his report of the actions which had
made him master of the forts. To ordinary common-sense it would seem
that the only important facts which he was called upon to report on
that occasion were that he had certain forces under his command; that
after three days of hard fighting in rain and sleet and indescribable
mud his enemy had surrendered the forts with 14,623 men, 65 pieces of
artillery and 17,000 stands of small arms; that he had made himself
master of the two strongholds and now completely commanded both rivers,
having thus opened a double river route into the heart of the Southern
Confederacy, which he proposed to make still further available by
an immediate advance upon Nashville and other strategic points the
possession of which would give him an open pathway to the Gulf itself.
This was all that common-sense required Grant to report for the
information of his superiors, and he reported precisely that. But those
office-housed superiors held him guilty of neglect in that he had not
given in detail the position of every regiment and brigade and battery
that had helped to win the victory. In punishment of this neglect of
infinitely petty detail--and also in emphasis of the fact that Grant
was after all only a general of volunteers who had presumed to win
unauthorized victories in no way assigned to him to win--Grant was
called back from his advance for the conquest of those strategic points
that lay so easily within his grasp and ordered instead to remain where
he was and to let slip from his hands the ripe fruits of his victory.
Was there ever anything so absurd as this, outside of comic opera--this
and the extraordinary reign of incapacity in the Confederate army and
Government? That was of like kind and quality.
The simple fact, of which the historian is obliged to take account,
is that if ordinary common-sense and the commonest forms of military
sagacity had been in control on either side at the beginning of the
war--if the men able to do things had been permitted to do them--the
struggle must almost certainly have ended within a few months after its
beginning; tens, yes, scores and hundreds of thousands of lives must
have been spared and multitudes of millions in expenditure and in the
destruction of property would have been saved to the American people.
That however was not to be. It was written in the Book of Fate that for
a time incapacity, self-seeking, narrow-minded, jealousy of rank, and
other like forces of the coarse and the commonplace were to rule about
equally on the one side and on the other, and that thus the war was to
be prolonged at terrible cost of sorrow and suffering and slaughter.
This was the situation in the West at the time when McClellan was
drilling his men around Washington, while Beauregard and Johnston
were futilely fortifying at Centreville to meet an assault that only
the writer of nonsense rhymes could at that time have regarded as
possible, and the victorious Federal forces on the Carolina coasts
were succumbing to the lassitude which that climate invites, making no
vigorous efforts to conquer the exposed and indefensible Confederate
lines of communication in that quarter.
Grant had a force of commanding numbers in the neighborhood of Forts
Henry and Donelson. His army had been swelled to 27,000 men. Buell had
as many more men--some of them battle-seasoned--at Louisville and south
of that city. There were other forces in eastern Kentucky under capable
commanders, which could easily have been brought to bear, forming an
army of more than 100,000 men in support of any southward movement that
might be undertaken. The movement which naturally suggested itself to
an aggressive military mind was one against Nashville, with an eye to
the penetration of the South from that point as a base of supplies.
The "march to the sea" was as easy a possibility then as when Sherman
made it years later.
This was Grant's idea, and it had behind it the eminent common-sense
which usually inspired and informed that very practical general's
plans. His purpose was to march with an overwhelming force, from
Nashville to the Gulf. He could have done this easily and certainly,
had he been permitted to undertake it with the forces then available.
But, as we have seen, his purpose was brought to naught by the veto of
General Halleck, whose notion of strategy seems to have been to let his
enemy determine where and when the fighting should occur.
Nevertheless the Southerners, seeing the strategic situation far more
clearly than Halleck did, abandoned Nashville and Federal troops of
Buell's army promptly occupied that city. Thus Grant's success was
saved to the country in some small and insignificant measure, though
Grant was himself suspended from command and compelled to wait in
inglorious ease until the Confederates by ceaseless and heroic efforts
got together a great army in northern Mississippi, to meet which
General Halleck found it necessary to call upon his most capable
lieutenant, Ulysses S. Grant.